Magnetoencephalography (MEG)

This review will focus on investigations of the auditory evoked neuromagnetic field component, the M100, detectable in the magnetoencephalogram recorded during presentation of auditory stimuli, approximately 100 milliseconds after stimulus onset. In particular, the dependence of M100 latency on attributes of the stimulus, such as intensity, pitch and timbre will be discussed, along with evidence relating M100 latency observations to perceptual features of the stimuli. Comparison with investigation of the analogous electrical potential component, the N1, will be made.

Recent work has suggested that, in addition to spatial tonotopy, pitch and timbre information may be encoded in the temporal activity of the auditory cortex. Specifically, the post-stimulus latency of the maximal cortical evoked neuromagnetic field (M100 or N1m) is a function of stimulus frequency. We investigated the additional effect of varying the stimulus intensity on the M100 response. A 37-channel biomagnetometer recorded neuromagnetic fields over the temporal lobe of healthy volunteers in response to monaurally presented tones.

The disorganized symptoms of schizophrenia, including severely disordered thought patterns, may be indicative of a problem with the construction and maintenance of cell assemblies during sensory processing and attention. The gamma and beta frequency bands (15-70 Hz) are believed relevant to such processing.

Magnetoencephalography (MEG), which acquires neuromagnetic fields in the brain, is a useful diagnostic tool in presurgical evaluation of epilepsy. Previous studies have shown that MEG affects the planning intracranial electroencephalography placement and correlates with surgical outcomes by using a single dipole model. Spatiotemporal source analysis using distributed source models is an advanced method for analyzing MEG, and has been recently introduced for analyzing epileptic spikes.

Magnetoencephalography noninvasively measures the magnetic fields produced by the brain. Pertinent research articles from 1993 to 2009 that measured spontaneous, whole-head magnetoencephalography activity in patients with schizophrenia were reviewed. Data on localization of oscillatory activity and correlation of these findings with psychotic symptoms are summarized.

EEGs obtained after craniotomy are difficult to read because of a breach rhythm consisting of unfiltered sharply contoured physiologic waveforms that can mimic interictal epileptiform discharges. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is less affected by the skull breach. The postcraniotomy EEG and MEG scans of 20 patients were reviewed by two experienced electroencephalographers. Larger interrater variability was found for EEG as compared with MEG.

The temporospatial pattern of brain activity during auditory imagery was studied using magnetoencephalography. Trained musicians were presented with visual notes and instructed to imagine the corresponding sounds.

Magnetoencephalography enables non-invasive detection of weak cerebral magnetic fields by utilizing super-conducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs). Solving the MEG inverse problem requires reconstructing the locations and orientations of the underlying neuronal current sources based on the extracranial measurements. Most inverse problem solvers explicitly favor either spatially more focal or diffuse current source patterns. Naturally, in a situation where both focal and spatially extended sources are present, such reconstruction methods may yield inaccurate estimates.

Selectively attending to task-relevant sounds whilst ignoring background noise is one of the most amazing feats performed by the human brain. Here, we studied the underlying neural mechanisms by recording magnetoencephalographic (MEG) responses of 14 healthy human subjects while they performed a near-threshold auditory discrimination task vs. a visual control task of similar difficulty.