Technical and Safety Aspects in Concurrent TMS/fMRI

Paolo Ferrari¹, Luigi Cattaneo¹, Jens Volkmar Schwarzbach¹, Marco Sandrini¹, Jorge Jovicich¹

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is an important method for cognitive neuroscience research in noninvasive stimulation of the human cortex combined with fMRI. The high magnetic field strength of modern MRI scanners imposes several limitations and challenges for its simultaneous combination with TMS. Our goal was to investigate technical and safety aspects in concurrent TMS/fMRI: 1) temperature characterization of the TMS coil, 2) synchronization procedure for TMS stimulation in concurrent TMS/fMRI. The implementation of the thermal curve help the planning of the TMS/fMRI protocols. With the external control system is possible to minimize the risk for patient and the scanner.