Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulator with controllable pulse parameters (cTMS)

We describe a novel transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) device that uses a circuit topology incorporating two energy-storage capacitors and two insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) to generate near-rectangular electric field (E-field) pulses with adjustable number, polarity, duration, and amplitude of the pulse phases. This controllable-pulse-parameter TMS (cTMS) device can induce E-field pulses with phase widths of 5-200 μs and positive/negative phase amplitude ratio of 1-10. Compared to conventional monophasic and biphasic TMS, cTMS reduces energy dissipation by 78-82% and 55-57% and decreases coil heating by 15-33% and 31-41%, respectively. We demonstrate repetitive TMS (rTMS) trains of 3,000 pulses at frequencies up to 50 Hz with E-field pulse amplitude and width variability of less than 1.7% and 1%, respectively. The reduced power consumption and coil heating, and the flexible pulse parameter adjustment offered by cTMS could enhance existing TMS paradigms and could enable novel research and clinical applications with potentially enhanced potency.