NdFeB magnets vs. pacemakers

NdFeB magnets, being the strongest known permanent magnets, are warned to be a hazard to people with pacemakers. I would expect a magnet could disrupt a device that uses magnetic or certain static fields for operation, such as computer hard drives, magnetic recording media, CRT screens, etc. It can also mechanically damage some things, like bending the fragile mask inside a CRT tube.

But I have found no effect of such a magnet on an electric circuit.

So my question, what is in a pacemaker that would make it susceptible to a strong magnetic field like this?

Yeah, this is probably more of a biomedical engineering question than just an electrical engineering question. But sci.engr.biomed seems to be dead (not counting spam).

Reply to
phil-news-nospam
Loading thread data ...

A couple of things I might guess at...

The obvious risk of something metalic/magnetic being displaced. I don't know if there are any such susceptable parts in a pacemaker.

The other thing is that a magnetic field will exert a force on a moving electron, i.e. signals travelling along nerves. At some point, this will disrupt the nerve signalling. A pacemaker is interfacing with nerve signals, both reading and generating them.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Also, further guessing, a moving magnet creates a changing magnetic field, a changing electric field, and flux linkage and voltages/currents in circuits.

Reply to
operator jay

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.