Magnetic resonance imaging with implanted neurostimulators: numerical calculation of the induced heating

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is still contraindicated in patients with implanted active medical devices, as the applied radiofrequency (RF) fields can lead to significant heating of the implants and the electrodes. A head model with an implanted deep brain stimulation electrode (DBS) was exposed to a continuous RF-field similar to the excitational field used in MRI at a frequency of 64 MHz. In this study a two-step procedure for the accurate estimation of electrode-heating during MRI is presented. First the energy loss was calculated in the frequency domain during an applied RF-pulse. Then a thermodynamic algorithm taking heat transfer mechanisms into account was used. The applied method showed to be numerically stable and gave more accurate results than first calculated using a simple worst-case approximation.