Moving magnetoencephalography towards real-world applications with a wearable system

By E. Boto, N. Holmes, J. Leggett, Gillian Roberts, V. Shah, S. Meyer, L. D. Muñoz, K. Mullinger, T. Tierney, Sven Bestmann and 3 more. Nature, 2018

1,169 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Imaging human brain function with techniques such as magnetoencephalography typically requires a subject to perform tasks while their head remains still within a restrictive scanner. This artificial environment makes the technique inaccessible to many people, and limits the experimental questions that can be addressed. For example, it has been difficult to apply neuroimaging to investigation of the neural substrates of cognitive development in babies and children, or to study processes in adults that require unconstrained head movement (such as spatial navigation). Here we describe a magnetoencephalography system that can be worn like a helmet, allowing free and natural movement during scanning. This is possible owing to the integration of quantum sensors, which do not rely on superconducting technology, with a system for nulling background magnetic fields. We demonstrate human electrophysiological measurement at millisecond resolution while subjects make natural movements, including head nodding, stretching, drinking and playing a ball game. Our results compare well to those of the current state-of-the-art, even when subjects make large head movements. The system opens up new possibilities for scanning any subject or patient group, with myriad applications such as characterization of the neurodevelopmental connectome, imaging subjects moving naturally in a virtual environment and investigating the pathophysiology of movement disorders.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Cognitive Neuroscience, Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a91eb8654d064b4421b361f83be2103c827f1c91

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Citations in the corpus

Optically pumped magnetometers: From quantum origins to multi-channel magnetoencephalography (2019, methodology): “Outside of sensory cortex, OPMs have been used to study the motor system while the subject is free to move (Boto et al., 2018) and (in one example of a distributed array) to localise and lateralise language function in the human brain (Tierney et al., 2018).”
Revolutionizing Pediatric Neurophysiology With Magnetoencephalography (2026, unknown): “As a result, researchers frequently rely on standardized brain templates or surrogate MRIs.”
The development of aperiodic and periodic resting-state power between early childhood and adulthood: New insights from optically pumped magnetometers (2024, background): “There have been numerous demonstrations and discussions about the robustness of OPM-MEG to head motion given its wearable nature (Barry et al., 2019; Boto et al., 2018; R. M. Hill et al., 2019; Pedersen et al., 2022; Seedat et al., 2024; Seymour et al., 2021), and new paradigms have been designed…”
Globally elevated excitation–inhibition ratio in children with autism spectrum disorder and below-average intelligence (2021, background): “Thirdly, the new and rapidly developing technology of ‘on-scalp’ MEG (65-67) may help to obtain equally high-quality data in all parts of the head, including the frontal areas, which are typically positioned furthest away from the sensors in ‘conventional’ MEG systems.”