Prospects for hybrid MEG-MRI technology
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1
Aalto University , Department of Biomedical Engineering and Computational Science, Finland
Magnetoencephalography (MEG) provides direct information about the brain’s neuronal currents through the measurement of femtotesla-level magnetic fields, enabling functional mapping with a 1-ms temporal accuracy. To correlate MEG findings with brain anatomy, structural imaging such as MRI is needed. However, in important clinical cases such as presurgical localization of eloquent cortex or the characterization of epileptic loci, proper combination of MEG and MRI data is hampered by the need to measure them with different devices at different times, which may cause localization errors of several milli¬meters. Ideally, one would like to measure both MEG and MRI with one instrument. The demonstration [1] that MRI can be performed at very low magnetic fields with SQUID magnetometers suggested that the two techniques could indeed be combined. The unification of MEG and MRI will constitute a new kind of hybrid system that would facilitate clinical diagnosis and presurgical mapping and help advance cognitive research of the brain. In addition, it would save costs and could be used when high-field MRI is not possible. The MEG-MRI hybrid system would allow simultaneity between MEG and MRI and would improve the spatial accuracy and the precision of quantitative measures of MEG functional imaging. Low-field MRI will improve patient safety and comfort (open structure, silent operation), provides superior T1 image contrast, and is free of susceptibility artefacts and other patient-specific geometric distortions. The feasibility of MEG-NMR, using SQUID sensors, has been demonstrated at the University of California at Berkeley, in Los Alamos, and in Berlin. In this talk, the prospects and challenges in building a hybrid MEG-MRI imaging system will be discussed and the European project MEGMRI will be described.
References
1. R. McDermott et al.,â€SQUID-detected magnetic resonance imaging in microtesla magnetic fieldsâ€, J. Low Temp. Phys. 135 (2004).
Conference:
Biomag 2010 - 17th International Conference on Biomagnetism , Dubrovnik, Croatia, 28 Mar - 1 Apr, 2010.
Presentation Type:
Oral Presentation
Topic:
Instrumentation and Multi-modal Integrations: MEG, Low-field MRI,EEG, fMRI,TMS,NIRS
Citation:
Ilmoniemi
R
(2010). Prospects for hybrid MEG-MRI technology.
Front. Neurosci.
Conference Abstract:
Biomag 2010 - 17th International Conference on Biomagnetism .
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.06.00009
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Received:
18 Mar 2010;
Published Online:
18 Mar 2010.
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Correspondence:
Risto Ilmoniemi, Aalto University, Department of Biomedical Engineering and Computational Science, Espoo, Finland, ilmoniemi@tkk.fi