Improved figure-of-eight coil for transcranial magnetic stimulation using magnetic resonant coupling

Abstract

This paper proposes an improved figure-of-eight coil for transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) by using the magnetic resonant coupling (MRC) effect, aiming to improve the treatment effect for psychiatric disorders. The proposed MRC-based figure-of-eight coil consists of two reverse-winding resonance coils, which embraces two series-connected source coils, respectively. Different from conventional figure-of-eight coils, the proposed topology can produce the resonant electromagnetic field to accumulate the stimulation energy. In such ways, the improved TMS system can effectively enhance the stimulation focality and depth while significantly reducing the requirement of the power supply, thus improving the safety as well as facilitating the miniaturization and portability. Last, this paper gives the simulated and experimental results to verify the theoretical analysis, which can further illustrate the feasibility of the proposed MRC-based figure-of-eight coil for TMS systems.