SlicerRoboTMS: An Open-Source 3D Slicer Extension for Robot-Assisted Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

TL;DR

SlicerRoboTMS is an open-source 3D Slicer extension that simplifies the development and deployment of robot-assisted TMS procedures by integrating MRI-based navigation and robotic interfaces.

Contribution

It introduces a unified, open-source platform for Robo-TMS research that supports diverse hardware and promotes reproducibility and rapid prototyping.

Findings

Demonstrated integration with MRI-based neuronavigation.

Supported various hardware configurations.

Facilitated reproducible Robo-TMS workflows.

Abstract

Robot-assisted Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (Robo-TMS) is an image-guided robotic intervention that enhances the accuracy and reproducibility of conventional Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), a widely used non-invasive brain stimulation procedure in clinical treatment and neuroscience research. Despite its potential, the development of Robo-TMS remains challenging due to the need for multidisciplinary expertise spanning medical imaging, computer vision, and robotics. This paper presents SlicerRoboTMS, an open-source 3D Slicer extension that provides a unified interaction infrastructure for Robo-TMS research. By leveraging 3D Slicer's medical image computing and visualisation capabilities, the extension supports Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)-based neuronavigation and interfaces with robotic systems through standardised communication protocols and configurable system descriptions. An example integration is presented to demonstrate how SlicerRoboTMS can be incorporated into a representative Robo-TMS workflow. Designed to support diverse hardware configurations and rapid prototyping, SlicerRoboTMS lowers the barrier to entry and facilitates reproducible and extensible research in Robo-TMS. The extension is available at https://github.com/OpenRoboTMS/SlicerRoboTMS.