Design and Construction of a Low Cost dsPIC Controller Based Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulator (rTMS)

Abstract

In this work, a digital signal peripheral interface controller (dsPIC) based repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulator (rTMS) was designed and tested under low voltages. In addition, some limited knowledge of TMS, especially design parameters and notions concerned with it, also were investigated. The reason employing the dsPIC in the design is that design parameters can effectively be controlled. Pulse width modulation and switching output of the control unit, which is necessary to control the rTMS device, were controlled in a more effective way. The other novelty is that developed system can be used for therapeutic or diagnostic purposes in future work provided by digital signal processing performance of dsPIC. Bounded-cylindrical in shape head model made from nonmagnetic material, was used during the tests of the system. Spectrum analyses of clicking sounds were performed with FFT by using MATLAB. The effectiveness of the designed system have been proved by its' measurement results compared with previous works.

Devices and Technology in Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation: A Systematic Review

“…They implemented a combination of numerical techniques to analyze the magnetic field produced by the coil (by varying the number of turns and coil size), the voltages and currents in the electrical circuit for different components’ values, and the effect of core saturation using non-linear analysis. Burunkaya [ 77 ] proposed incorporating a dsPIC (digital signal Programmable Intelligent Computer, Microchip Technology Inc., Chandler, AZ, USA) into a SCR-based TMS device in order to control the charge and discharge of the capacitor and to include the possibility to repeat the stimulus with a programmable repetition frequency. The main proposal was to replace, with a microcontroller, the control stages usually carried out with a computer.…”

Design and investigation of novel neural stimulation by magnetic resonance coupling

“…These modalities involve passing high intensity current pulses through a coil of wire, thereby inducing a magnetic field as high as 2-4 T [11]. Fast changing currents can be produced by two approaches, namely, using the SCR (silicon controlled rectifier) based charging and discharging circuit, controlled by a PWM input, using similar circuits as IGBTs [12]- [13].…”