TMS Facilities & Equipment
All TMS facilities and equipment are located on the first floor of the McDermott Clinical Sciences Building.
TMS Stimulation Systems
The RII’s primary human transcranial magnetic stimulation system is a Cadwell High Speed Magnetic Stimulator. It is capable of delivering pulses at a rapid rate of up to 25 Hz with no reduction in intensity.
The RII also has another transcranial magnetic stimulation system, Magstim BiStim Module. It is capable of delivering pulses at a slow rate of up to 0.25 Hz at maximum intensity. Two small animal coils (2 and 4 loop) are available for use with the Magstim system.
E-Field Measurement
Currently we measure the electric field using both a custom-made dipole probe and a custom-made coil probe. The output from these probes is measured using a Tektronix TDS 320 100 MHz, 2- channel digital oscilloscope. We have calculated and verified comprehensive 3-D E-Field maps for all TMS coils.
TMS Coil Aiming
TMS coil aiming is performed by an automatic and extremely accurate positioning device, the NeuroMate Robotic System. It is the only robot approved by the FDA for use in neurosurgical application and the only device of its kind adapted to precise, safe, programmable positioning, with on-line co-referenced spatial coordinate systems.
Microscribe Digitizers
The RII owns/operates 7 Microscribe coordinate-capture machines (CCM) manufactured by RevWare (Raleigh NC). Microscribe CCMs are five-axis mechanical digitizers with track the position and orientation of the stylus tip. This Micoscribed has a spherical workspace of 66″ (1.67 meters) and an accuracy of 0.012″ (0.30 mm). It supports connects to a host computer with a USB 3 interface with an internal sampling rate of 1000 per second. These CCM’s are used to create register study participants to treatment plans.
Electromyography (EMG)
The TMS lab has a Neuroscan SynAmps 32-channel EEG/ERP system running Scan 4.3 acquisition and analysis software that is used to record EMG. In addition there is a custom 8-channel double differential surface EMG (sEMG) system (Motion Lab Systems, Baton Rouge, LA). The TMS lab also has SML-10 strain gauges and a 9840 intelligent indicator (Interface, www.interfaceforce.com) to provide constant feedback of the muscle forces.