TY  - JOUR
AU  - Farì, Giacomo
AU  - Longo, Sara Clelia
AU  - Pitruzzella, Morena
AU  - Quarta, Francesco
AU  - Megna, Marisa
AU  - Ranieri, Maurizio
AU  - Tommasa, Simone Della
AU  - Leoni, Matteo Luigi Giuseppe
AU  - Varrassi, Giustino
AU  - Agostini, Francesco
AU  - Bernetti, Andrea
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/08/09
TI  - Neurobiological Effects of the Functional Magnetic Stimulation Chair: What Do We Know and What Do We Still Have to Discover? A Narrative Review
JO  - OBM Neurobiology
SP  - 343
VL  - 10
IS  - 03
AB  - This narrative literature review aims to examine and hypothesize about the neurobiological effects of the Tesla Functional Magnetic Stimulation (FMS) chair through a comprehensive search of PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science, and arXiv databases. A critical finding emerged: published research specifically investigating the Tesla FMS chair and its neurobiological mechanisms is extremely limited. Among the papers identified and ranked by relevance, only one study directly examined a Tesla-branded FMS chair system, which investigated a 3 Tesla electromagnetic chair for treating female urinary incontinence. The vast majority of the retrieved literature pertains to transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a distinct neuromodulation technique that targets cortical brain regions rather than peripheral nervous system structures. This review also provides a detailed analysis of the available evidence on general FMS technology, contextualizes findings within the broader magnetic stimulation literature, and identifies critical gaps requiring future investigation. The limited evidence suggests FMS chairs operate through peripheral nerve depolarization and sacral neuromodulation, but comprehensive neurobiological characterization is lacking the published literature and requires more high-quality studies. This review should be interpreted as a hypothesis-generating narrative synthesis rather than as a definitive mechanistic or efficacy assessment. The comparison with TMS is used only as a conceptual framework. At the same time, the specific mechanisms of chair-based FMS remain to be directly demonstrated through dedicated peripheral, spinal, and supraspinal investigations.
SN  - 2573-4407
UR  - https://doi.org/10.21926/obm.neurobiol.2603343
DO  - 10.21926/obm.neurobiol.2603343
ID  - Farì2026
ER  -