Treating schizophrenic patients, using high precision coils.

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) has been used to treat many psychiatric and neurological disorders. This non-invasive treatment method is FDA approved to treat depression and much research has been done to use the treatment on other disorders, one such disorder is schizophrenia. Unfortunately, minimal research has been done in this area because of the inherent complexity and diverse array of symptoms. The most prevalent and potentially treatable symptom experienced by schizophrenic patients are persistent auditory hallucinations. The primary auditory cortex is one region of the brain responsible for the realization of such hallucinations. However, this region is relatively small, in order to stimulate this area without overstimulating surrounding areas, a higher precision coil than the commercial “Figure-of-Eight coil” (FOE) is required. The authors have performed Finite Element simulations with both the FOE and the novel Quadruple Butterfly Coil (QBC) on heterogeneous head models of both healthy and schizophrenic individuals. Our findings show that the QBC focused on the primary auditory cortex stimulates significantly of the brain cortex than the FOE. This result provides an alternative coil that could be used in order to stimulate smaller regions of the brain.