Investigation of soft magnetic material cores in transcranial magnetic stimulation coils and the effect of changing core shapes on the induced electric field in small animals

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a safe, effective and non-invasive treatment for several psychiatric and neurological disorders. Lately, there has been a surge in research utilizing this novel technology in treating other neurological and psychiatric ailments. The application of TMS on several neurological disorders requires the induced electric and magnetic fields to be focused and targeted to a small region in the brain. TMS of a focal cortical territory will ensure modulation of specific brain circuitry without affecting unwanted surrounding regions. This can be achieved by altering the properties of the magnetic core material used for the TMS system. In this study, soft ferromagnetic materials having high permeability, high saturation magnetization and low coercivity have been investigated as TMS coil cores in finite element simulations. Also, magnetic field measurements have been carried out using different cores in the TMS coil. Finite element analysis of the rat head model is carried out using Sim4life software while investigating variations associated with changing the ferromagnetic core material and shape in the coil. Materials proposed for the analysis in this study include Iron Cobalt Vanadium alloy (Fe-Co-V) also known as Permendur, Carbon Steel (AISI 1010) and Manganese Zinc ferrites (MnZn ferrites). Simulation results indicated significant magnetic field distribution variation when introducing a ferromagnetic core in TMS coil, concentrating the magnetic field to the targeted region in the rat head model without stimulating adjacent regions. It was observed that the v-tip sharpened core attained the highest magnetic field and best focality among other cores in simulations and experimentally.