Radial maze proficiency of adult Wistar rats given prenatal complex magnetic field treatments.

Exposure to sinusoidal (power-frequency) magnetic fields during prenatal development is implicated in adulthood behavioral impairments. However, the effects of prenatal exposure to weak-intensity, nonsinusoidal complex magnetic fields (CMFs), an increasingly common feature of the modern environment, have not been rigorously examined. In the present study, male and female Wistar-strain rats were exposed continually during prenatal development to one of three extremely low-frequency CMFs or a sham condition. As adults, rats were trained in an acquisition/reversal radial maze task. All rats exposed to the prenatal CMFs increased their commission of reference memory errors, but differences in working memory and motivation to complete the maze task were specific to the type of prenatal CMF. These results provide the first evidence that prenatal exposures to specific shapes of CMFs impair complex learning behaviors into adulthood.