Effect of Microcoil Tip Angle on the Electric Field Gradient for Intracortical Magnetic Stimulation: A Computational...

Micromagnetic stimulation is an emerging field of neural stimulation, which has several advantages over established electrical stimulation techniques, such as improved focality and spatially asymmetric stimulation. Single microwire loops have been shown to stimulate cortex both in-vitro and in-vivo, but there have not been any studies published to date on the effect of the angle of convex tips on the induced fields. This computational study shows that greater tip angles tend to have stronger peak electric fields near the tip, and a more spherical stimulation region, whilst smaller tip angles induced lower peak field strengths, and a more ellipsoid stimulation region. This conference paper is intended to be used as a suggested modeling approach for micromagnetic stimulation.Clinical relevance- Modeling shows that microcoil probes are able to create large suprathresholds volumes, regardless of the tip angle, allowing for focal stimulation of cortical columns.