Affiliations: [a] Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'Informazione, Seconda
Università di Napoli, Aversa, Italy | [b] Ansaldo Ricerche, Naples branch office, Naples,
Italy
Correspondence:
[*]
Corresponding author: A. Formisano, Dipartimento di Ingegneria
dell'Informazione, Seconda Università di Napoli, Via Roma 29, 81031 CE
Aversa, Italy. E-mail: a.formisano@unina.it
Abstract: Purpose: This paper proposes an approach for the coupled EEG-MEG
data analysis that takes into account the anisotropy of brain tissues and the
different sensitivities of EEG and MEG measurements. Design/methodology/approach: The study is carried out by using a combination
of analytical and numerical methods. In particular, where available, closed
solutions are used to evaluate the numerical errors, while FEM models are used
where anisotropy and geometrical characteristics make analytical solutions not
applicable. Findings: The impact of tissues anisotropy on coupled
EEG-MEG analysis has been assessed, and the effectiveness of an approach based
on smart exploitation of different EEG and MEG sensitivity to improve sources
reconstruction has been demonstrated numerically. Research limitations/implications: The analysis has been carried out using a
spherical head model, and on simulated data. Practical implications: The proposed approach allows to improve the localization
of equivalent sources
for the description of cellular brain activity. Originality/value: The
properties of objective functions used in brain sources reconstruction from EEG
and MEG has been investigated taking into account tissues anisotropy in the
spherical symmetric case. In addition a formulation of the joint source and
tissues tensor conductivity estimation by exploiting simultaneously bioelectric
and biomagnetic measurements based on the complementary sensitivity of those
measurements has been presented.
Keywords: Identification problems, medical diagnostics, brain activity reconstruction
