Our method can be applied to modeling of brain stimulation and recording technologies such as TMS and magnetoencephalography, and has the potential to become a real-time high-resolution simulation tool.

Numerical simulation of electromagnetic, thermal, and mechanical responses of the human body to different stimuli in magnetic resonance imaging safety, antenna research, electromagnetic tomography, and electromagnetic stimulation is currently limited by the availability of anatomically adequate and numerically efficient cross-platform computational models or "virtual humans." The objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive review of modern human models and body region models available in the field and their important features.

Objective. A study pertinent to the numerical modeling of cortical neurostimulation is conducted in an effort to compare the performance of the finite element method (FEM) and an original formulation of the boundary element fast multipole method (BEM-FMM) at matched computational performance metrics. Approach. We consider two problems: (i) a canonic multi-sphere geometry and an external magnetic-dipole excitation where the analytical solution is available and; (ii) a problem with realistic head models excited by a realistic coil geometry. In the first case, the FEM algorithm tested is a fast open-source getDP solver running within the SimNIBS 2.1.1 environment. In the second case, a high-end commercial FEM software package ANSYS Maxwell 3D is used. The BEM-FMM method runs in the MATLAB® 2018a environment. Main results. In the first case, we observe that the BEM-FMM algorithm gives a smaller solution error for all mesh resolutions and runs significantly faster for high-resolution meshes when the number of triangular facets exceeds approximately 0.25 M. We present other relevant simulation results such as volumetric mesh generation times for the FEM, time necessary to compute the potential integrals for the BEM-FMM, and solution performance metrics for different hardware/operating system combinations. In the second case, we observe an excellent agreement for electric field distribution across different cranium compartments and, at the same time, a speed improvement of three orders of magnitude when the BEM-FMM algorithm used. Significance. This study may provide a justification for anticipated use of the BEM-FMM algorithm for high-resolution realistic transcranial magnetic stimulation scenarios.

While studies have shown that the application of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been beneficial in the stimulation of cortical activity and treatment of neurological disorders in humans, open questions remain regarding the placement of electrodes for optimal targeting of currents for a given functional area. Given the difficulty of obtaining in vivo measurements of current density, modeling of conventional and alternative electrode montages via the finite element method has been utilized to provide insight into tDCS montage performance. It has been shown that extracephalic montages might create larger total current densities in deeper brain regions, specifically in white matter as compared to an equivalent cephalic montage. Extracephalic montages might also create larger average vertical current densities in the primary motor cortex and in the somatosensory cortex.At the same time, the horizontal current density either remains approximately the same or decreases. The metrics used in this paper include either the total local current density through the entire brain volume or the average vertical current density as well as the average horizontal current density for every individual lobe/cortex.