CELLULAR ACTIVITY | Science News

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- Sweet Confusion: Does high fructose corn syrup deserve such a bad rap?
- Closed Thinking: Without scientific competition and open debate, much psychology research goes nowhere
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CELLULAR ACTIVITY

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After a 50-minute call to a cell phone on a subject's right side (left image), nearby brain regions showed heightened activity (arrow). In a brain with phones placed to both sides of the head but turned off (right), activity was normal. Credit: JAMA, Feb. 23, 2011, Vol. 305, p. 808 © 2011 American Medical Assn.

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I think this is really interesting, and I want to understand it better. My limited understanding of the brain is that it requires glucose metabolism to function, and performing activities like listening and talking, critical thinking, filtering what you are saying, etc all require a lot of higher functioning and certain parts of the brain working together. Why would more glucose metabolism be surprising for using a cell phone? Also, was the scan with the phones placed on both sides of the head taken as the person was talking on the cell phone or not? If not, then please help me to understand why this would be surprising as well.

Emily Skocypec

May. 31, 2011 at 7:14pm

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