Comparison of electric fields induced in humans and rodents by 60-Hz contact currents.

Abstract

Contact currents flow when a conducting object such as an animal touches conductive surfaces at different potentials. This completes a path for current flow through the body. These currents provide an additional coupling mechanism between the human body and low-frequency external fields to that due to direct induction effects. Recent research indicates that childhood exposure to residential contact currents may play a role in explaining any possible association between residential magnetic fields and childhood leukemia. To verify this hypothesis, laboratory experiments with rodents are planned. Thus, it is important to understand the relationship between fields induced in rodents and humans. Results from numerical computations are reported here. They are based on high-resolution anatomically based inhomogeneous models of adult and child male humans and male and female rats and mice, for a variety of 60-Hz contact current scenarios. It is hoped that this work will aid in the design of experiments involving rodents and in the interpretation of results as applied to humans. It is found that for geometrically similar models, the induced electric-field scales in an anticipated inverse-square manner with the geometric scaling factor. For dissimilar models, scaling can provide a crude estimate for translating induced field results between species. However, numerical modeling provides the most suitable analysis tool for more accurate estimates.