Importance of soft tissue inhomogeneity in magnetic peripheral nerve stimulation

In magnetic peripheral nerve stimulation with a figure-of-eight coil, a 'tangential-edge' coil orientation (the nerve is beneath the coil intersection and perpendicular to the coil wings) is ideal theoretically. However, some experimental results show that strong muscle responses are elicited with a 'symmetrical-tangential' coil orientation (the nerve is beneath the coil intersection and parallel to the coil wings), which is inconsistent with the cable theory. We hypothesized that the 10:1 conductivity difference between muscle and fat would cause inconsistent results during magnetic median nerve stimulation in the elbow, which was verified using an inhomogeneous volume conductor model. The induced electric fields were measured in a model composed of saline solutions of different concentrations divided by a cellophane sheet. A nerve was imagined along the boundary between the two solutions, and the coil was held in a 'symmetrical-tangential' position. Virtual cathodes, which were off the nerve in the homogeneous model, were on the nerve in the inhomogeneous model. The previous inconsistent results were explained by considering soft tissue inhomogeneity without any modification of the assumption in the cable theory that only the induced electric field component parallel to the nerve is responsible for nerve excitation. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd.