Optimizing Electric-Field Delivery for tDCS: Virtual Humans Help to Design Efficient, Noninvasive Brain and Spinal Cord Electrical Stimulation

Noninvasive electrical stimulation of the central nervous system is attracting increasing interest from the clinical and academic communities as well as from high-tech companies. This interest was sparked by two landmark studies conducted in 2000 and 2001 at the University of Göttingen, Germany. Michael Nitsche and Walter Paulus showed that by passing a weak, almost imperceptible electric current between two electrodes on the scalp, they could alter the way the human brain responds to stimuli and that the effect persisted for some time after the current was stopped. These findings opened the prospect of therapeutic applications of transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS).