Realistic volumetric-approach to simulate transcranial electric stimulation—ROAST—a fully automated open-source pipeline

Research in the area of transcranial electrical stimulation (TES) often relies on computational models of current flow in the brain. Models are built on magnetic resonance images (MRI) of the human head to capture detailed individual anatomy. To simulate current flow, MRIs have to be segmented, virtual electrodes have to be placed on these anatomical models, the volume is tessellated into a mesh, and the finite element model is solved numerically to estimate the current flow. Various software tools are available for each step, as well as processing pipelines that connect these tools for automated or semi-automated processing. The goal of the present tool – ROAST – is to provide an end-to-end pipeline that can automatically process individual heads with realistic volumetric anatomy leveraging open-source software (SPM8, iso2mesh and getDP) and custom scripts to improve segmentation and execute electrode placement. When we compare the results on a standard head with other major commercial software tools for finite element modeling (ScanIP, Abaqus), ROAST only leads to a small difference of 9% in the estimated electric field in the brain. We obtain a larger difference of 47% when comparing results with SimNIBS, an automated pipeline that is based on surface segmentation of the head. We release ROAST as a fully automated pipeline available online as a open-source tool for TES modeling.

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