here, here, and here. host: explain the politics of a special election? what will you be looking at? guest: it's all about get out the vote now. these two campaigns are focused on getting their people to the polls. special elections are tricky. they're usually pretty educated voters. most people i talked to -- we see letters to the editor. i do not know if people are turned off and that will depress turnout, or if they're really concerned about the future of the country that they will go. it will be interesting. host: i saw a figure above to $2 million in the special election and could go higher. does that sound right to view? guest: i think there's been more spent by each of the candidates.

i think that the $2 million figure might be outside money that is spent in this race, not by the candidates themselves. certainly, all television advertisements all the time. host: she is covering the story. herpes is available online at democraticchronicle.com -- her story is available online at democraticchronicle.com. does this surprise you that it has reached this point? reliably's pretty republican territory. when two seats were held by republicans, this was one of them. this was a surprise to a lot of people. we will see what happens. the democrat is certainly not -- she is certainly a relentless campaigner. i do not know if it's all that surprising.

a discussion on the effects of cell phone usage. over the three-day memorial day weekend commencement addresses from across the country, leaders from politics, business and entertainment all offering their advice and insights to the graduating class of 2011. at 3:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. eastern, more more of morro bay weekend on c-span. >> this week on "the communicators" several perspectives on a study that measures how brain activity changes due to cell phone use.

>> host: joining us on "the communicators" is dr. nora volkow, who is the director of the national institute on drug abuse and recently dr. volkow you conducted a study on cell phones. what was that study? >> guest: the study was those trying to find out if the human brain is sensitive to the electromagnetic radiation emanated by cell phones which is not an obvious answer because it is a very low intensity and prior stories that have been done to address that question have provided very inconclusive results. some show increases in activity and in some show decreases in some showed no changes. so it's very difficult to extract the information information i could answer that question. is the human brain sensitive to the intensity of electro- magnetic radiation that are

deposited in your brain when you are using a cell phone for regular communication? >> host: if that is the question you were looking to answer, what is the answer? >> guest: well we found that after 15 minutes of exposure of a cell phone, the areas of the brain that were closest to the antenna showed increased consumption of glucose. now, glucose is the way that the brain extracts energy in order to perform its functions. when you are activating an area of the brain you see an increasing glucose consumption so when we are observing what appears to be an increase in acidity of the areas of the brain that were close to the antenna. >> host: so what else would increase brain glucose? thinking, sports, etc.? >> guest: if you are a life you are very low consuming glucose and the only situation where you will see no glucose consumption is in a dead brain. and i am saying this very clearly because this is not like a pathological response. it is a physiological response

in the way that brains are requiring performing functions. for example, if if i look at you, the areas of my brain that are involved in professing the light, those areas are consuming much more glucose. that is for example i had my -- clothes because i had my ears closed of course no stimulus comes through. and the amount of glucose that would increase torque consumed by the cortex of my brain is going to be cut dependent on the complexity of the visual stimulus that i have in front of me which is a lot of object around me. so how much glucose is likely to be created in my visual cortex? based on that i would say probably a lot, between 20 and 50%. so this is one of the areas that require the most glucose consumption and performing a task. when i'm speaking for example the area involved with -- maybe

consuming 10 or 15% or more glucose than if i were silent. so depending on the area of the brain on the one hand but also on the complexity of operations that you may be performing or the complexity of the stimulation that you are being asked is supposed to -- exposed to. will be observed and by the way the cell phone is -- because of course it there is noise that would activate the auditory cortex in terms of hearing. it is transmitting text that has been recorded so what you have here are increasing -- which is very close to the antenna in this area right here. we are attempting to reflect the electromagnetic radiation emitted from the antenna and that increasing glucose consumption was approximately 7%.

>> host: 7%? >> guest: 7% so it is in the low range but in the physiological range. >> host: now, you have a slide here that you provided to us and this is with the cell phone off, a brain scan, and this is the front of the brain, correct? the part up at the top. been with the cell phone on. and you see a lot more yellow in the front of the brain here. if you would explain that. as well as you see a change in the red corps. is there anything significant about that? >> guest: well they are used to scale the amount of glucose consumed and this is a rainbow scales of the red is the areas that has the highest consumption. as you compare one of the images of the brain versus images of the brain on, you see it is actually this area of the brain, the axial plane like this that is above your eyes which is the area that has the closest relationship with the antenna.

those areas when you compare on and off you seem see more bread and more yellow which is an indication of the fact that glucose consumption is higher under those conditions and you can using these images, show a display of numbers that are scaling the different colors. but you can extract a particular area in the front of the cortex, measure specifically the activity of glucose consumption and compare the on/off. when you do that, that is when on average we are seeing a 7% increase in glucose and as more reds and yellows. >> host: the question that everybody is asking dr. volkow is this an indication of danger? when you are talking about the radio, the electronic magnetic forces that are being emitted? >> guest: i wish i could answer that question because everybody has asked me and i

feel very frustrated. i can't. i would love to say our study is able to apply this controversial issue, but the reality is that we still don't know. what our studies to tell us is that the human brain appears to be sensitive to these electromagnetic radiation emitted by cell phones. whether this is comparable or not, this is something that needs to be addressed by future studies and it is important in many perspectives. in fact, and i am not saying that it is, but studies were to show that there is long-lasting consequences that could be negative, then the question is how can you avoid it? and it is very easy. is very easy to avoid this. you just don't put the cell phone by the side of your head. because intensity of the --

emitted from the cell phone rapidly decreases with distance. if i have my cell phone one foot away from me, the exposure of my brain is going to be minimum. that is one. assuming that shows there is a negative effect. on the other hand, it does not show that there are negative effects meaning that the neuroscientist know the concept of technology for cerebellar purposes. could we use this type of stimulation to activate areas of the brain where it may be beneficial? and again that is a scientific question that needs the address provided there is no evidence there are harmful effects. whichever way the fields show, i think it is extremely interesting that it is sensitive to this very week at electromagnetic corps. >> host: what are rms's in

what other devices or else how else do we receive them? >> guest: well, the electromagnetic variation that you are getting from cell phones, you have the frequency of power from other types of wireless technology. for example, your regular phone that is wireless, but not the cell phone technology, has much less power than a regular cell phone. we estimated to to be somewhere approximately 100 less powerful. so you need to consider the intensity, the power. the other thing that is really relevant for physiological purposes has to do with the frequencies. and the way in which cell phones transmit is in the gig to low megahertz which is very very different to devices that may be dependent on extremely low

frequency waves and which have been shown, some of those, too affect electra and so a graphic signals. the other aspect of these radiations that have been shown by -- appears to be relevant is the control of the amplitude which has a very slow frequency pattern. there were multiple factors and variables that determine ultimately the extent to which biological issues may be or may not be sensitive to these exposures. so you cannot just -- one type of energy emitted by cell phones. say for example another type of energy emitted by other devices including your laptop which requires wireless technology. >> host: so our emf's being emitted from laptops as well? >> guest: they are electronic currents that are very very

weak, much weaker than anything on the cell phone for which to my knowledge there has been no concern with respect to health effects. >> host: now can you compare the amount of radioactivity that we are receiving through a cell phone to an x-ray or two maybe an airport screening machine? >> guest: those are two different types of radiations. one is based on ionizing radiation that has very specific properties and for which there is clear-cut evidence that at a certain range they can be harmful and has been associated with cancer. and that is why there are very strict limits in terms of how much ionizing radiation you can expose your party like with an atomic bomb, we all know the adverse consequences with respect to markedly increasing the rates for cancer. so that is a very different type of radiation. the type of radiation with biological issues and their

different way than electromagnetic radiation or radio frequency. so, they are very distinct. in the one case, no one questions their high levels and at a certain threshold it does create the risk for cancer. that is not necessarily the case for electromagnetic radiation provided to they are following the standards by the rate reagan at her agency's. and those standards actually are very -- on their threshold after which there should be no hitting of the tissue. the regulatory agencies are concerned that your cell phone does not emit energies that will hit the tissue through microwave radiation. and my understanding is that all of the devices to follow very rigorously these revelations.

>> host: dr. volkow is your study the first of its kind or have other studies been done like this and if so, is your study consistent with the results of the other studies? >> guest: there are many doggies to show whether cell phone exposures affect rain function and they have used a variety of technologies looking for example very simply doesn't interfere with your ability to memorize cognitive test? doesn't interfere with signals? to zanamivir with the tissue when you send a magnetic poles? there have been also stories that have been done using imaging technologies like the one we do which is emission tomography. but those studies differ on important thing. all of those studies measure -- cerebral blood flow which

actually is the main mechanism by which the brain delivers nutrients, glucose and oxygen but it is also a main mechanism by which the brain pulls the tissues of the brain has to maintain temperatures as very very narrow window so there is a certain fear that blood flow will bring it down. glucose on the other hand measures the level of neuronal activity of the tissue. so which is a function of course of what type of accumulation so they differ in those two -- one was done on blood flow and studies by independent laboratories that of measure the effect on cerebral blood flow. this is the first door -- study that has measured brain glucose. you take advantage of what all the others have done, right? one of the things that has been in my brain worrisome about the

prior studies of course when you look at it respectively it is easier to say, is that basically all of those studies were done in a very small sample side. very few subjects. i think that the largest study may have been 14 or the most 16 subjects. now that it's okay if you are expecting a large effect. subject will be sufficient for me to show that effect. but, with cell phones where we actually expect a small effect because of the word big effect we would see it behaviorally, we then power our study to be able to detect the small defect which was not the case for any of the prior imaging studies and which may have been one of the reasons why people are able to show a significant effect like the one that we showed that the exposure was close to the antenna. having said that, other

studies -- there was a study that showed with cerebral blood flow it was significant that the area of the antenna and encased -- that case the antenna was there, there was a decrease in blood flow. that was significant. we are seeing an increase in the areas nearer to the antenna and that study also show significant increases in blood flow far away from the antenna. so, it is very difficult to integrate with what we observe which is increasing glucose consumption close to the antenna and nothing significant far away from the antenna. now, there is a third difference between the methodologies that we are using in this has to do with the metal itself. when you are measuring blood flow with these technologies, you are averaging the brain over 60 seconds, which is good for certain things.

whereas if you are measuring brain glucose -- lucas metabolism you are measuring every 20 to 30 minutes. if you you are interested in observing the effect of stimulation than having a window of 20 to 30 minutes increases your sensitivity for detection as opposed to having a window of 60 seconds. and i always use the metaphor with a camera. if you have low levels of light and you are opening your aperture for a short period of time the photograph is low as opposed to if you needed it wide open and of course not moving it but just wide open, that will allow you to extract the photograph even when the light conditions are very low. so i am using that metaphor to advantage of using technology that allows us to integrate and

average over a 30 minute period. >> host: dr. volkow you are the director of the national institute on drug abuse. why are you conducting this study on cell phone use? >> guest: well, it is a convoluted story and there is a story. what is happened is all of my professional life, i have interested -- i've been interested on the effects of drugs in the human brain and the main tool i've been using has been imaging technology. tomography is one of the imaging technologies that i have been using in close collaboration with my team in the national laboratory. but the other imaging technology that we have been also extensively using his mag medic residents -- magnetic resonance imaging. magnetic resonance depends on changing to see other brain functions.

for the past two or three as our group has been interested, has been investigated when in fact the properties of the magnetic fields used in mri imaging by themselves will have an effect on brain function. so when we started 16 years ago it was a static magnetic field and then we showed static eidetic fields over all don't seem to affect the coast metabolism in the brain, but we recently showed that in contrast when you you are using ingredients which are rapidly shifting your magnetic currents, then we see a significant change in glucose metabolism in the human brain. and those which were very unexpected immediately said if we are seeing an effect knocked on the properties of the -- that is constant but one that is changing that is to say the intensity of the magnet

frequency may be relevant in in the way biological systems respond. that led us to study whether cell phones would affect brain glucose metabolism. it came because we were trying to understand how the imaging tools that are used understand the human brain functions could through the use of changing magnetic fields affect the brain. that is how we came to his the study. >> host: how was the study conducted? >> guest: bovary recruited initially 48 subjects and they were brought into the laboratory and testing was done to assure that they were controlled. all of the subjects had history of cell phone exposure. they were tested on two different days and the order of the days was randomized. on every given day the subject had to cell phones place, what on the left someone on and one on the right and these were

secured i a muffler to ensure positioning. the upper parts of the cell phone was to the air in the lower part was to the mouth. the subject did not know whether the cell phones were off or on, nor did they know whether they're right or the left cell phone would be on. this was done because we did not want -- if i have a cell phone here i may have prior to my experience with using cell phones make me alert to try to figure out something that could confound the results. in order to control for expectations we put two cell phones and perhaps the subjects the first day the right phone was on and for the other half, that first day, both phones were off. we started the activity with the phones 20 minutes before -- actually it was 30 minutes before we started, before the

injected them with radioactive glue coast because we wanted a long-lasting exposure. 30 minutes after immunization of assimilation we injected the radioactive glucose and maintain the cell phones on for 20 more minutes. that allowed for a total of 60 minutes of cell phone exposure. at the end of that 20 minutes, cell phones were turned off. the patients were brought into the scanner and laid on the scanner and then we measured brain lucas metabolism which takes approximately 20 minutes to obtain those images. but those images which are measuring the glucose that has been trapped over the first 30 minutes. that is why it allows you to average the activity, and so then while you are measuring the glucose is already trapped in it is not going to change. it allows you to take a fix

photograph of what happens before you take the person into the camera. >> host: do you use a cell phone up to your ear? >> guest: i use a cell phone all the time but i don't put it up to my ear. i am neurotic when it comes to this. my perspective on something like this, and again i do not know if there is any harm and if you look at history and how people react to technology and when we look at it, how could we be afraid? people were afraid of electricity, so that it is normal. we don't know about that technology and it turns out there's nothing harmful. on the other hand, radiation. we were not afraid of radiation and it turns out there are harmful effects. because i don't know and there are certain a.c. solutions since i love my cell phone, why not? i mean it doesn't cost me anything. is to me a no-brainer. let the scientists figured out. either there are or not harmful

effects. i can have my cake and eat it too. i can use my cell phone and minimize any potential at it there is. >> host: what about the use of a bluetooth or some other ear device? guest: we have not evaluated the bluetooth and i think it is important to evaluate the bluetooth. again, until we have more information it will be very difficult to determine whether one should have any concerns or not at all. i don't think there is information. >> host: who funded the study and what was it budgeted for? >> guest: i have two lives. this story is a result of my life as an investigator and my laboratory is part of the national institute of alcohol abuse and alcoholics. brookhaven national laboratories

is where i keep my laboratory. >> host: fully funded by the u.s. taxpayer. both of. >> guest: there are no private companies. >> host: dr. nora volkow conducted the most recent cell phone study which you can find on line at c-span.org/ communicators. dr. volkow thank you for being with us. >> guest: thank you for having me. >> host: now joining us on "the communicators" is dr. kenneth foster who is at a new engineering professor at the university of pennsylvania who has done a lot of research on radiofrequency energy. dr. foster we have been talking with dr. volkow about cell phone studies conducted by her group with nih. what is your opinion of this study? >> guest: well, think it will be very hard to interpret. for one thing, the subjects received almost no exposure and the effect they reported was very small. and so, it will be very hard to

understand what it means. >> host: does it matter what kind of phone they use in this study? >> guest: well, it does. this particular phone they use with the samsung handset and i can imagine a phone that is less able to produce exposure to somebody's brain. >> host: what you say that? >> guest: the antenna was located at the very bottom of the phone as far away from the brain as possible and the pattern of absorption in the head was pretty much limited to the cheek and the job. another problem was that the phone was receiving a message from somebody else and these kinds of phones under those conditions only transmit in frequently just until the system it is still connected. and so, the level of radiation from the phone was quite low. and also with those phones, the level of transmission is determined by how strong the signal is from the local base station. these are always power down to provide the lowest level of

communication or possible. given these factors, and also the phone with some distance from the head. the author said they used a muffler or something between a the phone a phone in the head so given these uncertainties there is really no way of knowing what the exposure was. but i'm quite sure it is extremely low. in fact the study showed low levels of exposure. >> host: dr. foster if they'd used an iphone or a droid, do you think there would have been different results? two different cell phones emit different radio frequencies? >> guest: yes, they emit different power levels but since the level of transmission is so variable depending on all sorts of things they have would really have had to have worked in collaboration with an engineer who understands these things and are hap sees a cell phone which is modified to put out a given level of signal.