The inverse problem of MEG aims at estimating electromagnetic cerebral activity from measurements of the magnetic fields outside the head. After formulating the problem within the Bayesian framework, a hierarchical conditionally Gaussian prior model is introduced, including a physiologically inspired prior model that takes into account the preferred directions of the source currents. The hyperparameter vector consists of prior variances of the dipole moments, assumed to follow a non-conjugate gamma distribution with variable scaling and shape parameters. A point estimate of both dipole moments and their variances can be computed using an iterative alternating sequential updating algorithm, which is shown to be globally convergent. The numerical solution is based on computing an approximation of the dipole moments using a Krylov subspace iterative linear solver equipped with statistically inspired preconditioning and a suitable termination rule. The shape parameters of the model are shown to control the focality, and furthermore, using an empirical Bayes argument, it is shown that the scaling parameters can be naturally adjusted to provide a statistically well justified depth sensitivity scaling. The validity of this interpretation is verified through computed numerical examples. Also, a computed example showing the applicability of the algorithm to analyze realistic time series data is presented.
We present a Bayesian filtering approach for automatic estimation of dynamical source models from magnetoencephalographic data. We apply multi-target Bayesian filtering and the theory of Random Finite Sets in an algorithm that recovers the life times, locations and strengths of a set of dipolar sources. The reconstructed dipoles are clustered in time and space to associate them with sources. We applied this new method to synthetic data sets and show here that it is able to automatically estimate the source structure in most cases more accurately than either traditional multi-dipole modeling or minimum current estimation performed by uninformed human operators. We also show that from real somatosensory evoked fields the method reconstructs a source constellation comparable to that obtained by multi-dipole modeling.
A recently proposed iterated alternating sequential (IAS) MEG inverse solver algorithm, based on the coupling of a hierarchical Bayesian model with computationally efficient Krylov subspace linear solver, has been shown to perform well for both superficial and deep brain sources. However, a systematic study of its ability to correctly identify active brain regions is still missing. We propose novel statistical protocols to quantify the performance of MEG inverse solvers, focusing in particular on how their accuracy and precision at identifying active brain regions. We use these protocols for a systematic study of the performance of the IAS MEG inverse solver, comparing it with three standard inversion methods, wMNE, dSPM, and sLORETA. To avoid the bias of anecdotal tests towards a particular algorithm, the proposed protocols are Monte Carlo sampling based, generating an ensemble of activity patches in each brain region identified in a given atlas. The performance in correctly identifying the active areas is measured by how much, on average, the reconstructed activity is concentrated in the brain region of the simulated active patch. The analysis is based on Bayes factors, interpreting the estimated current activity as data for testing the hypothesis that the active brain region is correctly identified, versus the hypothesis of any erroneous attribution. The methodology allows the presence of a single or several simultaneous activity regions, without assuming that the number of active regions is known. The testing protocols suggest that the IAS solver performs well with both with cortical and subcortical activity estimation.
We present Visbrain, a Python open-source package that offers a comprehensive visualization suite for neuroimaging and electrophysiological brain data. Visbrain consists of two levels of abstraction: (1) objects which represent highly configurable neuro-oriented visual primitives (3D brain, sources connectivity, etc.) and (2) graphical user interfaces for higher level interactions. The object level offers flexible and modular tools to produce and automate the production of figures using an approach similar to that of Matplotlib with subplots. The second level visually connects these objects by controlling properties and interactions through graphical interfaces. The current release of Visbrain (version 0.4.2) contains 14 different objects and three responsive graphical user interfaces, built with PyQt: Signal , for the inspection of time-series and spectral properties, Brain for any type of visualization involving a 3D brain and Sleep for polysomnographic data visualization and sleep analysis. Each module has been developed in tight collaboration with end-users, i.e., primarily neuroscientists and domain experts, who bring their experience to make Visbrain as transparent as possible to the recording modalities (e.g., intracranial EEG, scalp-EEG, MEG, anatomical and functional MRI). Visbrain is developed on top of VisPy, a Python package providing high-performance 2D and 3D visualization by leveraging the computational power of the graphics card. Visbrain is available on Github and comes with a documentation, examples, and datasets ( http://visbrain.org ).
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.