Investigating the electric field distribution in the human brain model induced by a high focality transcranial magnetic coil

Abstract

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a noninvasive neuromodulation technique for treating various neurological disorders. The geometry of the TMS coil determines the focality, stimulation field strength, and stimulation depth of the induced electric field. In this paper, we introduce a novel coil, named the eccentric folding coil (EFC). We used Sim4Life, a three-dimensional human tissue medical electromagnetic simulation software, and the brain models of the subjects from the population head model repository to conduct finite element simulations of the eccentric folding coil, circular coil, and figure-eight coil, implying that the largest EFC has a focal area of 19.5 cm2 less than the smallest circular coil, and the EFC of any size has a smaller focal area than the figure-8 coil of the same size. Furthermore, we stimulated the model from three directions with the coil and measured the electric field responses of the model, confirming that stimulation varied in different directions. Additionally, we applied EFC to four representative human models and found that the electric field in different subjects’ brains differed by 3.03 mm in stimulation depth and 12.9 cm2 in focal area, suggesting that personalized human head modeling and electromagnetic analysis are essential for TMS treatment. In the future, we will explore using different types of TMS devices for patients with different conditions to achieve more precise and customized treatment.