Controlling the dose in transcranial brain stimulation
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In our events, we are committed to Aalto University’s principles for a safer space.
Welcome to our ABC Seminars! This seminar series is open for everyone. The talk will take place in Otakaari 3, F239a Auditorio. After the talks, coffee and pulla will be served.
The event will be also streamed via Zoom at: https://aalto.zoom.us/j/67444945844
Controlling the dose in transcranial brain stimulation
Abstract:
This talk addresses personalized dose control in non-invasive brain stimulation, focusing on transcranial electric and magnetic stimulation and extending to transcranial ultrasound. It starts from a working definition of stimulation dose that separates the device parameters under experimenter control from the physical exposure they produce in tissue. Building on this distinction, I ask why dose quantification matters for basic and clinical work, and how accurate it must be to support reliable interpretation of stimulation effects, principled optimization, and safety assessment. Requirements differ across these uses: retrospective explanation of variability, prospective individualization of exposure, and safety margins each tolerate different kinds and magnitudes of error. I then examine how personalized dose estimates depend on technical choices in the modeling pipeline and on assumed biophysical tissue properties, and review approaches for quantifying and managing the resulting uncertainty. Overall, the talk highlights conceptual, methodological, and practical considerations for applying dose calculations in research and clinical settings.
Bio:
Axel Thielscher obtained doctoral degrees in Electrical Engineering and Biomedical Sciences, both "with highest honor", from the University of Ulm (Germany). This was followed by a PostDoc stay at Brown University (Providence, RI) and a position as research group leader at the Max-Planck-Institute for Biological Cybernetics (Tübingen, Germany). He moved to Denmark in 2012 where he started on a shared position as Associate Professor at the Technical University of Denmark (DTI) and Senior Researcher at the Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance (Copenhagen University Hospital Amager & Hvidovre), before being promoted to Full Professor in 2021 and taking over the duties as Head of Section for Magnetic Resonance at DTU in 2022. Axel Thielscher’s research interfaces engineering with neuroscience and clinical neuropsychiatric research. This includes the integration of non-invasive brain stimulation with brain imaging modalities as well as computational dosimetry methods for brain stimulation. He has particular interest in understanding fundamental biophysical mechanisms of non-invasive brain stimulation, and use this knowledge to improve how stimulation is practically applied. He is the founder of the SimNIBS project (Simulation of Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation) that developed the first open-source software pipeline for individualized FEM calculations for brain stimulation based on MR images, and that is now widely used in the field and is part of several clinical trials in Denmark and abroad.