Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)

TMS technology is the only FDA cleared and CE-marked navigated TMS system for pre-operative mapping of the motor and speech cortices of the brain.

What is navigated TMS?

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive, safe procedure that can be done before surgery to help us learn which brain regions are important for movement and language. Navigated TMS (nTMS) means that we use your child’s brain scan to guide the TMS procedure.

During nTMS, your child sits in a comfortable chair. Very young children may even sit in their parent’s lap. We use the magnet to stimulate the brain and know exactly where we have stimulated because we are guided by your child’s brain scan. When looking for brain regions that are important for movement, we use special stickers on the muscles to detect small twitches caused by the stimulation. When we do language mapping, your child plays a game where he or she names objects on a screen both without the stimulation and with the stimulation. When regions important for language are stimulated, the stimulation will cause your child to make an error in the game. After the TMS procedure, important motor and/or language regions will be mapped onto your child’s individual brain scan and shared with your doctors. This map will help your neurologist and neurosurgeon plan the safest possible surgery.

We are proud to offer TMS to children of many ages and developmental abilities. Our fantastic Child Life staff will greet your family and help your child feel comfortable with the procedure. Our team includes neurodiagnostic technologists who have many years of experience with children with epilepsy, as well as a pediatric epileptologist. 

Want to be involved in TMS research?

We invite all children who undergo language mapping to be part of our language mapping database. In this study, funded by the Pediatric Epilepsy Research Foundation, researchers from many large epilepsy centers are reviewing language mapping data to improve this procedure for all children considering neurosurgery.

We are excited to welcome you for TMS functional brain mapping!

Nexstim—Users and Locations