UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

Pragmatic spatial sampling for wearable MEG arrays

Tierney, TM; Mellor, S; O'Neill, GC; Holmes, N; Boto, E; Roberts, G; Hill, RM; ... Barnes, GR; + view all (2020) Pragmatic spatial sampling for wearable MEG arrays. Scientific Reports , 10 (1) , Article 21609. 10.1038/s41598-020-77589-8. Green open access

[thumbnail of s41598-020-77589-8.pdf]
Preview
Text
s41598-020-77589-8.pdf - Published Version

Download (3MB) | Preview

Abstract

Several new technologies have emerged promising new Magnetoencephalography (MEG) systems in which the sensors can be placed close to the scalp. One such technology, Optically Pumped MEG (OP-MEG) allows for a scalp mounted system that provides measurements within millimetres of the scalp surface. A question that arises in developing on-scalp systems is: how many sensors are necessary to achieve adequate performance/spatial discrimination? There are many factors to consider in answering this question such as the signal to noise ratio (SNR), the locations and depths of the sources, density of spatial sampling, sensor gain errors (due to interference, subject movement, cross-talk, etc.) and, of course, the desired spatial discrimination. In this paper, we provide simulations which show the impact these factors have on designing sensor arrays for wearable MEG. While OP-MEG has the potential to provide high information content at dense spatial samplings, we find that adequate spatial discrimination of sources (< 1 cm) can be achieved with relatively few sensors (< 100) at coarse spatial samplings (~ 30 mm) at high SNR. After this point approximately 50 more sensors are required for every 1 mm improvement in spatial discrimination. Comparable discrimination for traditional cryogenic systems require more channels by these same metrics. We also show that sensor gain errors have the greatest impact on discrimination between deep sources at high SNR. Finally, we also examine the limitation that aliasing due to undersampling has on the effective SNR of on-scalp sensors.

Type: Article
Title: Pragmatic spatial sampling for wearable MEG arrays
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-77589-8
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-77589-8
Language: English
Additional information: Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Keywords: Image processing, Magnetoencephalography
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Imaging Neuroscience
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10117707
Downloads since deposit
0Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item