Designing Polymer Thick Film Intracranial Electrodes for use in Intra-Operative MRI Setting.

G. Bonmassar[1], and A. Golby[2]
[1]AA. Martinos Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts, USA
[2]Department of Neurosurgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Published in 2009

A new type of MRI compatible intracranial electrode based on Polymer Thick Film (PTF) is presented and studied using COMSOL Multiphysics. The geometry considered was a two-dimensional cross section cut of 5 mm thick electrodes with 5 cm leads on top of a 2×10 cm slab representing Gelfilm, or the substrate. The resistive leads were compared with metallic leads to estimate the ballistocardiogram noise. The results show that PTF resistive leads may reduce by up to three orders of magnitude the ballistocardiogram-induced current densities of the leads.