Electrical field modelling of transcranial direct current stimulation

Abstract

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) is a technology for neurotransmission that provides direct current to relatively intensive cortical areas in order to modulate internal brain activity. There have been inaccuracies in tDCS findings identified by recent studies. In this study, we present a modeling pipeline for computer-based tDCS analysis for studying different electrode montages and different sizes (1 x 6 cm²) and (5 x 7 cm²) of electrodes to find out the outcomes. The assumption is that a given brain region’s stimulation would be stable in different montages. The total simulation current flow and electric field distribution within the brain were determined for the four most widely used tDCS montages: F3-F4, F3-FP2, FP1-FP2, and C4-FP2, using the COMETS2 software tool. The effect of the size of the electrodes is simulated for tDCS in F3-FP2 mounts in small (1 x 6 cm²) and wide (5 x 7 cm²) rectangular electrodes. The current flow is calculated in order to examine the impact of the mounting setup for current density and electric field. Regional as well as localized current densities in the electrode sites have been considered for each of the various mounting setups.