Acoustic noise generated by TMS in typical environment and inside an MRI scanner.

Background: The operation of a transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) coil produces high-intensity impulse sounds. In TMS, a magnetic field is generated by a short-duration pulse in the range of thousands of amperes in the TMS coil. When placed in a strong magnetic field, such as inside a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) bore, the interaction of the magnetic field and the current in the TMS coil can cause strong forces on the coil casing.

Neural Substrate for Metacognitive Accuracy of Tactile Working Memory.

The human prefrontal cortex (PFC) has been shown to be important for metacognition, the capacity to monitor and control one's own cognitive processes. Here we dissected the neural architecture of somatosensory metacognition using navigated single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to modulate tactile working memory (WM) processing. We asked subjects to perform tactile WM tasks and to give a confidence rating for their performance after each trial.