Theoretical evaluation of magnetoreception of power-frequency fields

Several effects of power-frequency (50/60 Hz) magnetic fields (PF-MF) of weak intensity have been hypothesized in animals and humans. No valid mechanism, however, has been proposed for an interaction between PF-MF and biological tissues and living beings at intensities relevant to animal and human exposure. Here we proposed to consider PF-MF as disrupters of the natural magnetic signal. Under exposure to these fields, an oscillating field exists that results from the vectorial summation of both the PF-MF and the geomagnetic field. At a PF-MF intensity (rms) of 0.5 mT, the peak-to-peak amplitude of the axis and/or intensity variations of this resulting field exceeds the related discrimination threshold of magnetoreception (MR) in migrating animals. From our evaluation of the 50/60 Hz responsiveness of the putative mechanisms of MR, single domain particles (Kirschvink's model) appear unable to transduce that oscillating signal. On the contrary, radical pair reactions are able to, as well as interacting multidomain iron-mineral platelets and clusters of superparamagnetic particles (Fleissner/Solov'yov's model). It is, however, not yet known whether the reception of 50/60 Hz oscillations of the natural magnetic signal might be of consequence or not.