Magnetoencephalography Without a Shielded Room
TL;DR
A lightweight, low-cost, multichannel magnetoencephalography system that can image brain activity without needing a magnetically shielded room, and it is shown that the signal to noise ratio of the in-vivo recordings is comparable to what can be obtained from a conventional cryogenically-cooled MEG system sited within a shielded room.
Abstract
Magnetoencephalography (MEG) offers non-invasive neuroimaging with high temporal and spatial precision - but its adoption is hampered by the prohibitive cost and infrastructure burden of a magnetically shielded room. We have overcome that burden and present a lightweight, low-cost, multichannel magnetoencephalography system that can image brain activity without needing a magnetically shielded room. The multichannel nature of the system facilitates not just detection but also localization of brain signals that are over 300 million times smaller than environmental interference, without requiring passive shielding. Our system weighs less than 75kg, more than 100 times lighter than a typical shielded room. This is made possible through low-cost active shielding and software-based spatial filtering. We also show that the signal to noise ratio of our in-vivo recordings is comparable to what can be obtained from a conventional cryogenically-cooled MEG system sited within a shielded room. This demonstration is a crucial step towards democratizing magnetoencephalography and making it a globally accessible neuroimaging technology for healthcare and discovery research.