title: Investigation of assumptions underlying current safety guidelines on EM-induced nerve stimulation.
abstract: An intricate network of a variety of nerves is embedded within the complex anatomy of the human body. Although nerves are shielded from unwanted excitation, they can still be stimulated by external electromagnetic sources that induce strongly non-uniform field distributions. Current exposure safety standards designed to limit unwanted nerve stimulation are based on a series of explicit and implicit assumptions and simplifications. This paper demonstrates the applicability of functionalized anatomical phantoms with integrated coupled electromagnetic and neuronal dynamics solvers for investigating the impact of magnetic resonance exposure on nerve excitation within the full complexity of the human anatomy. The impact of neuronal dynamics models, temperature and local hot-spots, nerve trajectory and potential smoothing, anatomical inhomogeneity, and pulse duration on nerve stimulation was evaluated. As a result, multiple assumptions underlying current safety standards are questioned. It is demonstrated that coupled EM-neuronal dynamics modeling involving realistic anatomies is valuable to establish conservative safety criteria.
authors.affiliation: Foundation for Research on Information Technologies in Society (IT'IS), Zeughausstr. 43, 8004 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Esra
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Neufeld
authors.forename: Ioannis
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Vogiatzis Oikonomidis
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ida Iacono
authors.forename: Leonardo M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Angelone
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Kainz
authors.forename: Niels
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kuster
mesh_terms: D004574:Electromagnetic Fields / Q000009:adverse effects; D006801:Humans; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009412:Nerve Fibers / Q000502:physiology / Q000528:radiation effects; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D013696:Temperature; D004561:Transcutaneous Electric Nerve Stimulation / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards