In article <1991Aug5.134013.19105 at njitgw.njit.edu> jfa0522 at hertz.njit.edu (john f andrews ece) writes:
>Is it "safe"? Is it useful? It is (is it?) non-invasive...
I've been a subject for a magstim experiment here at Berkeley.
Hopefully it's safe. It's non-invasive in that it doesn't require
brain surgery, but when you pump enough current through a coil to get
the kind of magnetic fields required, the coil compresses and expands
(it's an electromagnet) with such rapidity and violence that it's like
having someone fire a .22 next to your skull. Also, it stimulates the
muscles of your scalp, so there is an unpleasant twitching in your
head and neck. In the experiment I was in the experimenters were
trying to stimulate the visual cortex to produce phosphenes. They were
very faint, but definitely there (they didn't do the control
experiment, which would have been to fire a .22 next to my skull to
see if I still saw phosphenes...).
Charles Neveu
Neurology Unit
U.C. Berkeley
