Palina Sinitsa

  Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience | Bachelor Psychology

The Electric Field Fingerprint of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Palina's elevator pitch
My thesis introduces the 'Electric-field fingerprint', a novel framework for characterising transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)-induced electric fields within a predefined region of interest in the brain. This framework moves beyond the traditional, simplistic description practices adopted by TMS modelling research, providing a multidimensional profile of TMS stimulation by incorporating metrics such as effectiveness, specificity, depth, and inhomogeneity. This allows it to capture the spatial complexity of Electric-field distributions more accurately. Demonstrated in three case studies, it characterizes coil properties, evaluates targeting methods, and identifies compensatory strategies for suboptimal targeting. This comprehensive, spatially precise framework promises to enhance the characterization, comparison, and optimization of TMS protocols in research and clinical applications.