Effects of RF EMF on the spontaneous spiking activity of dissociated DRG sensory neurons in the absence and presence of inflammatory cytokine, TNF-α.

<p>(A) Representative confocal image of dissociated DRG neurons following 15 min incubation with 5 μM Fluo-3 AM (Scale bar = 15 μm). (B) Unsmoothed ΔF/F for a single cell. Spikes correlate to an increase in intracellular calcium concentration. (C) Spikes per active cell calculated at 0.35 for RF EMF ‘OFF’ (n = 163) or ‘ON’ (n = 232). Spikes persisted after removal of the RF stimulus, which was consistent with observations from behavioral assays. (D) A larger percentage of DRG neurons were active when RF EMF stimulus was applied to cultures perfused with inflammatory cytokine TNF-α (10 ng/ml).</p>