MEG and EEG Facilities

The MEG/EEG facility is equipped with a state-of-the-art 306-channel planar dc-SQUID Neuromag Vectorview MEG system that allows noninvasive spatiotemporal mapping of human brain activity. The Neuromag system, comprising 306 MEG channels (2 planar gradiometers and a magnetometer at each of 102 sites) and 128 EEG channels, is located in an Imedco magnetically shielded room, with a shielding factor of approximately 250,000 at 1Hz. Computer-controlled visual, auditory, and somatosensory stimulation systems as well as behavioral response monitoring and eye movement tracking equipment are available in the laboratory. The MNE data analysis software package, which allows smooth integration of MEG, EEG, MRI, and fMRI data. In addition, the laboratory provides access to other proprietary and free academic analysis packages.

In addition to the MEG recording room, the MEG laboratory includes a second RF-shielded room for EEG recording. Both rooms will have optical cables to enable simultaneous use of a 32-channel source/32-channel detector diffuse optical tomography (DOT) system with EEG or M/EEG recordings. The system is equipped for optical and psychophysiological recordings, and for delivering and controlling sensory stimuli. All data are stored on a RAID storage system with terabytes of online storage capacity. The data are available over a highbandwidth local network to all analysis computers (Linux, SGI, HP, and Sun workstations and servers, and our new supercomputer). Several advanced source localization methodologies implemented by a large group of biophysicists are available to users.