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Study Treatment Modality: Electromagnetic Stimulation History Highlights The notion of electromagnetic induction was first discovered by Michael Faraday in 1831 at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Faraday wound two coils on an iron ring and showed that whenever the coil on one side was connected or disconnected from a battery, an electrical current passed through the coil on the other side. The iron ring helped to position the coils in relation to each other and an experiment a few weeks later produced the same effect from two coils closely positioned in air. With non-invasive magnetic stimulation, the stimulating coil acts as the first coil, air as the medium for the flow of the magnetic field, and the electrically conductive living body tissue as the second coil. In 1896, d’Arsonval placed his head between two coils driven from an alternating 110 volt supply at 30 amperes and reported phosphenes (flickering lights in his visual field) [C R Soc Biol; 1896, 3:450-51]. Later, it was determined that the effect was due to the direct stimulation of the retina. Bickford and Fremming in 1965 [Digest 6th Int Conf Med Elec Biol Eng, 1965, p112] demonstrated magnetic stimulation of facial nerves, and in 1982, Polson et al. used magnetic stimulation for peripheral stimulation and recorded the first muscle evoked potential [Med Biol Eng Comput, 20: 243-4]. A significant breakthrough using the technique of magnetic stimulation occurred in 1985 when Barker et al. in Sheffield [Lancet, 1985, 1106-1107] achieved magnetic stimulation of the human motor cortex. [Geddes LA, J Clin Neurophysiol, 1991, 8:1-9]. Since then, there has been an explosion of applications of electromagnetic stimulation explored and researched together with simultaneous leaps made in reliable equipment development. Such improvements have encompassed stimulators with differing output waveforms; coil design advancements such as the development of coils with multiple windings for precise stimulation of nerves or cortical neurons; the development of trains of pulses for therapy in rehabilitation, sports medicine and in the treatment of psychiatric disorders; the use of fast repetitive stimuli to determine the laterality of speech centers; and high energy focal stimuli as an adjunct to ECT to relieve drug resistant depression. |
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