Dear Achilleas,

the information sheet about the electrode paste you use indicates explicitely

that usage with current-inducing devices is not allowed - consequently it is

not tested in terms of safety, in particularly human beings and not covered

from insurance issues.

Kind regards,

Carl

 I see. It doesn't say on mine but I just have the tube and not the information sheet. That's a shame.

Thank you Carl!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/review/B0011YY9YM/R3D2OABWQJ3CMW/ref=cm_cr_dp_mb_rvw_3?ie=UTF8&cursor=3

This should be suitable. Basically I need to make sure as much as possible that during sleep thee eeg cap and electrodes will stay in place. Going to be using normal EEG paste for eeg and for the tACS electrodes the above.

Hey, the most common set-up i have seen used for tACS + EEG sleep studies is to use the ten20 paste for tACS electrodes and instead of using the cap, use an adhesive EEG gel like the EC2. Then you can use appropriate tape to hold the electrodes in place.

So people are using the EEG paste for tACS electrodes, but it is just not recommended by the manufacturer? What do you use in Manchester?

We would either use saline (for shorter experiments) and the sleep lab uses ten20 paste for overnight experiments. I assume you are using the neuroelectrics starstim device? Don't they provide a gel for tACS stimulation? Below is a link to a JoVE article they did for simultaneous EEG+tACS experiment:

http://www.jove.com/video/50426/simultaneous-eeg-monitoring-during-transcranial-direct-current

Yes they do provide the gel but its too runny and probably dries faster too. Due to the nature of the study (sleep study with long hours) i am looking for the most efficient conductive gel to use. Plus my T7-T8 areas are too close to the mastoids and i have gotten gel running to the mastoids once where my reference/ground electrodes are :/

Truth is i haven't found the STARSTIM to be very suitable for sleep study but i wont have access to other equipment until October so i'm trying to make due with what i have now.

I will use the ten20 EEG gel then for tACS stimulation. It shouldnt be that terrible i am only stimulating for 2 minutes at 0.5mA. The Parker Labs Tensive Conductive Adhesive Gel seems even better suitable for this as it is used for current inducing electrodes and it is sticky.

That sounds reasonable, I havent used the Parker labs gel but it does seem ok, I would consider the fact that both this and the ten20 paste are used for tACS with rubber electrodes and not the silver coated ones that Starstim uses, may be worth piloting how the impedance is affected and also you may find that it tingles more due to the smaller area of the electrode and the potentially higher impedance which may be an issue if it is enough to wake your subjects up. Good Luck!

Hello, Yes it works well in tDCS with Ten20® Conductive Paste using silver coated electrodes (simple or multiple) of the Startim system. Best.

That is great news!

We have used this paste (Abralyt 2000: http://easycap.brainproducts.com/e/products/products.htm) and it worked very well. Additionally, we've used a one-way swimming cap to prevent that the participants sleep on pillow covered with this paste. A nice side-effect was that due this swimming cap the paste did not dry out overnight.