Transcranial magnetic stimulation: a brief review on the principles and applications
Nov 18, 2019
Renan Hiroshi Matsuda, Gabriela Pazin Tardelli, Carlos Otávio Guimarães, Victor Hugo Souza and Oswaldo Baffa Filho
Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a noninvasive method of the human cortex stimulation. Known as TMS, the technique was introduced by Barker et al. in 1985. Its operation is based on the Faraday’s Law, in which an intense magnetic feld that varies rapidly is able to induce an electric feld in the surface of the brain, depolarizing the neurons in the cerebral cortex. Due to its versatility, TMS is currently used for both research and clinical applications. Among the clinical applications, TMS is used as a diagnostic tool and also as a therapeutic technique for some neurodegenerative diseases and psychiatric disorders such as depression, Parkinson’s disease and tinnitus. As for the diagnostic tool, motor mapping is a technique to delineate the area of representation of the target muscle in its cortical surface, whose applicability may be in studies of the cerebral physiology to evaluate damage to the motor cortex and corticospinal tract. This review aims to introduce the physics, the basic elements, the biological principles and the main applications of transcranial magnetic stimulation.
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