Temporal and spatial profiles of evoked activity induced by magnetic stimulation using millimeter-sized coils in the mouse auditory cortex in vivo

Abstract

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a minimally/non-invasive method of electromagnetic stimulation of brain tissue, has been shown to be beneficial in clinical therapy for specific neurological diseases and disorders. Magnetic stimulation is also used to modulate human and animal brain activity in basic neuroscience studies. Among experimental animal models, mouse models are particularly popular and uniquely representative of brain disorders in basic neuroscience research. TMS in mouse models may play a substantial role in understanding TMS-induced changes in neural networks and plasticity. Although TMS techniques are widely used to examine rodent disease models, techniques specific for mice using small magnetic stimulators have not been intensively developed. Here, we provide a numerical simulation and a practical method of applying TMS to mice by constructing millimeter-sized TMS coils to deliver a low stimulation intensity while maintaining focality. Our results indicate the TMS coils can produce an electrical field with sufficient magnitude to activate the anesthetized mouse cortex in the presence or absence of the skull in vivo. Our results also show that, immediately after magnetic stimulation, local field and action potentials were reliably observed in a manner that depended on the distance between the coil and the brain, implying even a small coil could reliably evoke cortical activity. Therefore, our results show our millimeter-sized coils could produce electric fields sufficient to alter cortical excitability in mice. These coils could be useful in future preclinical studies to examine detailed mechanisms underlying TMS-induced changes in neural activity of the auditory cortex and other cortical regions.