Electromagnetic brain mapping

Abstract

There has been tremendous advances in our ability to produce images of human brain function. Applications of functional brain imaging extend from improving our understanding of the basic mechanisms of cognitive processes to better characterization of pathologies that impair normal function. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG) (MEG/EEG) localize neural electrical activity using noninvasive measurements of external electromagnetic signals. Among the available functional imaging techniques, MEG and EEG uniquely have temporal resolutions below 100 ms. This temporal precision allows us to explore the timing of basic neural processes at the level of cell assemblies. MEG/EEG source localization draws on a wide range of signal processing techniques including digital filtering, three-dimensional image analysis, array signal processing, image modeling and reconstruction, and, blind source separation and phase synchrony estimation. We describe the underlying models currently used in MEG/EEG source estimation and describe the various signal processing steps required to compute these sources. In particular we describe methods for computing the forward fields for known source distributions and parametric and imaging-based approaches to the inverse problem.