Command performance | Nature

Access through your institution Buy or subscribe Some while ago Daedalus proposed the use of pulsed magnetic fields in psychotherapy. Unlike electro-shock therapy, they induce purely local

currents in the brain. The technique now seems to be maturing. It is claimed that pulsed magnetic fields, applied to specific regions of the brain, can affect motor control or relieve

depression. So Daedalus is now sharpening the selectivity of the method, and extending it to the nervous system as a whole. A tightly shaped magnetic pulse will induce current in, and

therefore fire, nerves in quite a small region of tissue. By itself, this might not be useful; even a narrow nerve trunk can carry thousands of individual fibres, each with a different

destination. But Daedalus feels that each fibre must have its own ‘resonant frequency’, possibly quite broad, at which it will fire most effectively. It may also respond best to a specific

shape of pulse. So if magnetic pulses of carefully adjusted frequency, amplitude and shape are aimed at a nerve trunk, they should trigger just one class of fibre (those to a specific

muscle, say) without affecting the rest. This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution ACCESS OPTIONS Access through your institution Subscribe to this journal

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Authors * David Jones View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS

ARTICLE Jones, D. Command performance. _Nature_ 388, 630 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/41675 Download citation * Issue Date: 14 August 1997 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/41675 SHARE THIS

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