Human subjects exposed to a specific pulsed (200 microT) magnetic field: effects on normal standing balance.

Static and time-varying magnetic fields have been shown to alter animal and human behaviors, such as directional orientation, learning, pain perception (nociception or analgesia) and anxiety-related behaviors. Human volunteers (12 male, 12 female, 18-34 years old) stood on a force plate while within three square magnetic field coil pairs (2, 1.75 and 1.5 m) arranged orthogonal with the uniform magnetic field volume centered at head level. Analysis of the data shows a significant improvement of normal standing balance or center of pressure, with eyes open or eyes closed, by a specific pulsed 200 microT(pk) magnetic field (PEMF). There was no significance found in control condition testing, such as sham-sham exposure of subjects or sham/PEMF exposure of a 60 kg saline phantom. There were no significant effects of gender or age.