In-vivo Imaging of Magnetic Fields Induced by Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) in Human Brain Using MRI

Overview

Journal Sci Rep

Specialty Science

Date 2016 Oct 5

PMID 27698358

Citations 28

Authors

Mayank V Jog

Robert X Smith

Kay Jann

Walter Dunn

Belen Lafon

Dennis Truong

Allan Wu

Lucas Parra

Marom Bikson

Danny J J Wang

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is an emerging non-invasive neuromodulation technique that applies mA currents at the scalp to modulate cortical excitability. Here, we present a novel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique, which detects magnetic fields induced by tDCS currents. This technique is based on Ampere's law and exploits the linear relationship between direct current and induced magnetic fields. Following validation on a phantom with a known path of electric current and induced magnetic field, the proposed MRI technique was applied to a human limb (to demonstrate in-vivo feasibility using simple biological tissue) and human heads (to demonstrate feasibility in standard tDCS applications). The results show that the proposed technique detects tDCS induced magnetic fields as small as a nanotesla at millimeter spatial resolution. Through measurements of magnetic fields linearly proportional to the applied tDCS current, our approach opens a new avenue for direct in-vivo visualization of tDCS target engagement.

Citing Articles

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