Overview

Magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG) provide complementary views to the neurodynamics of healthy and diseased human brains. Both methods are totally noninvasive and can track with millisecond temporal resolution spontaneous brain activity, evoked responses to various sensory stimuli, as well as signals associated with the performance of motor, cognitive and affective tasks.MEG records the magnetic fields, and EEG the potentials associated with the same neuronal currents, which however are differentially weighted due to the physical and physiological differences between the methods. MEG is rather selective to activity in the walls of cortical folds, whereas EEG senses currents from the cortex (and brain) more widely, making it harder to pinpoint the locations of the source currents in the brain. Another important difference between the methods is that skull and scalp dampen and smear EEG signals, but do not affect MEG. Hence, to fully understand brain function, information from MEG and EEG should be combined. Additionally, the excellent neurodynamical information these two methods provide can be merged with data from other brain-imaging methods, especially functional magnetic resonance imaging where spatial resolution is a major strength.MEG-EEG Primer is the first-ever volume to introduce and discuss MEG and EEG in a balanced manner side-by-side, starting from their physical and physiological bases and then advancing to methods of data acquisition, analysis, visualization, and interpretation. The authors pay special attention to careful experimentation, guiding readers to differentiate brain signals from various artifacts and to assure that the collected data are reliable. The book weighs the strengths and weaknesses of MEG and EEG relative to one another and to other methods used in systems, cognitive, and social neuroscience. The authors also discuss the role of MEG and EEG in the assessment of brain function in various clinical disorders. The book aims to bring members of multidisciplinary research teams onto equal footing so that they can contribute to different aspects of MEG and EEG research and to be able to participate in future developments in the field.

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9780190497774

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This Primer fulfills a gap in the human neurophysiology literature where no book exists dealing with MEG and EEG in equal terms. This is important since both methodologies are, in essence, complementary and jointly can be used to answer specific scientific questions with respect to a variety of brain functions. Special attention is paid to comparisons of findings obtained using both MEG and EEG modalities, what can yield important new insights, particularly in the growing field of cognitive neuroscience. Written in an appealing style, this Primer embraces the whole field of human neurophysiology. -Fernando Lopes Da Silva, MD, PhD, Emeritus Professor, Center of Neuroscience, Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

"""This Primer fulfills a gap in the human neurophysiology literature where no book exists dealing with MEG and EEG in equal terms. This is important since both methodologies are, in essence, complementary and jointly can be used to answer specific scientific questions with respect to a variety of brain functions. Special attention is paid to comparisons of findings obtained using both MEG and EEG modalities, what can yield important new insights, particularly in the growing field of cognitive neuroscience. Written in an appealing style, this Primer embraces the whole field of human neurophysiology."" -Fernando Lopes Da Silva, MD, PhD, Emeritus Professor, Center of Neuroscience, Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, Amsterdam, The Netherlands ""The two non-invasive electrophysiological recording methods, magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG), are closely related due to their common neural sources. They are usually discussed separately in the literature, which makes it difficult to optimize the use MEG and EEG to target specific neuroscience or clinical questions. This engaging Primer is a welcome addition because it covers all aspects of both methods on equal footing. This volume covers the physiological and physical point of view, the path from data acquisition to analysis and interpretation, and discusses many different types of data that can be acquired. It is useful reading for newcomers, for experts of one method or the other, and developers of new methods to give them a thorough understanding of the physiological and physical underpinnings of MEG/EEG."" --Matti Hämäläinen, PhD, Associate Professor of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA"

Author Information

Riitta Hari MD, PhD researches systems neuroscience and neuroimaging. She has pioneered the use of MEG in the study of the spatiotemporal dynamics of sensory, motor, cognitive and social brain functions both in health and disease. Her background training is in medicine, with specialization in clinical neurophysiology. Aina Puce, PhD is a social neuroscientist with research interests in the brain bases of human non-verbal communication. Her studies in basic and clinical human neuroscience have used scalp and intracranial EEG, and functional MRI methods. Her formal training was in biophysics and functional brain mapping/neurophysiology.

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