1950 MHz electromagnetic fields ameliorate Aβ pathology in Alzheimer’s disease mice

Abstract

The involvement of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) in the neurodegenerative disease, especially Alzheimer’s disease (AD), has received wide consideration, however, outcomes from several researches have not shown consistency. In this study, we determined whether RF-EMF influenced AD pathology in vivo using Tg-5xFAD mice as a model of AD-like amyloid β (Aβ) pathology. The transgenic (Tg)-5xFAD and wild type (WT) mice were chronically exposed to RF-EMF for 8 months (1950 MHz, SAR 5W/kg, 2 hrs/day, 5 days/week). Notably, chronic RFEMF exposure significantly reduced not only Aβ plaques, APP, and APP carboxyl-terminal fragments (CTFs) in whole brain including hippocampus and entorhinal cortex but also the ratio of Aβ42 and Aβ40 peptide in the hippocampus of Tg-5xFAD mice. We also found that parenchymal expression of β-amyloid precursor protein cleaving enzyme 1(BACE1) and neuroinflammation were inhibited by RF-EMF exposure in Tg-5xFAD. In addition, RF-EMF was shown to rescue memory impairment in Tg-5xFAD. Moreover, gene profiling from microarray data using hippocampus of WT and Tg- 5xFAD following RF-EMF exposure revealed that 5 genes (Tshz2, Gm12695, St3gal1, Isx and Tll1), which are involved in Aβ, are significantly altered inTg-5xFAD mice, exhibiting different responses to RF-EMF in WT or Tg-5xFAD mice; RF-EMF exposure in WT mice showed similar patterns to control Tg-5xFAD mice, however, RF-EMF exposure in Tg- 5xFAD mice showed opposite expression patterns. These findings indicate that chronic RF-EMF exposure directly affects Aβ pathology in AD but not in normal brain. Therefore, RF-EMF has preventive effects against AD-like pathology in advanced AD mice with a high expression of Aβ, which suggests that RF-EMF can have a beneficial influence on AD. © 2015 Bentham Science Publishers.