In this paper we present a new discretization strategy for the boundary element formulation of the Electroencephalography (EEG) forward problem. Boundary integral formulations, classically solved with the Boundary Element Method (BEM), are widely used in high resolution EEG imaging because of their recognized advantages, in several real case scenarios, in terms of numerical stability and effectiveness when compared with other differential equation based techniques. Unfortunately however, it is widely reported in literature that the accuracy of standard BEM schemes for the forward EEG problem is often limited, especially when the current source density is dipolar and its location approaches one of the brain boundary surfaces. This is a particularly limiting problem given that during an high-resolution EEG imaging procedure, several EEG forward problem solutions are required for which the source currents are near or on top of a boundary surface. This work will first present an analysis of standardly and classically discretized EEG forward problem operators, reporting on a theoretical issue of some of the formulations that have been used so far in the community. We report on the fact that several standardly used discretizations of these formulations are consistent only with an L 2 -framework, requiring the expansion term to be a square integrable function (i.e., in a Petrov-Galerkin scheme with expansion and testing functions). Instead, those techniques are not consistent when a more appropriate mapping in terms of fractional order Sobolev spaces is considered. Such a mapping allows the expansion function term to be a less regular function, thus sensibly reducing the need for mesh refinements and low-precisions handling strategies that are currently required. These more favorable mappings, however, require a different and conforming discretization which must be suitably adapted to them. In order to appropriately fulfill this requirement, we adopt a mixed discretization based on dual boundary elements residing on a suitably defined dual mesh. We devote also a particular attention to implementation-oriented details of our new technique that will allow the rapid incorporation of our finding in one's own EEG forward solution technology. We conclude by showing how the resulting forward EEG problems show favorable properties with respect to previously proposed schemes and we show their applicability to real case modeling scenarios obtained from Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data.
We present a Calderón preconditioner for the electric field integral equation (EFIE), which does not require a barycentric refinement of the mesh and which yields a Hermitian, positive definite (HPD) system matrix allowing for the usage of the conjugate gradient (CG) solver. The resulting discrete equation system is immune to the low-frequency and the dense-discretization breakdown and, in contrast to existing Calderón preconditioners, no second discretization of the EFIE operator with Buffa-Christiansen (BC) functions is necessary. This preconditioner is obtained by leveraging on spectral equivalences between (scalar) integral operators, namely the single layer and the hypersingular operator known from electrostatics, on the one hand, and the Laplace-Beltrami operator on the other hand. Since our approach incorporates Helmholtz projectors, there is no search for global loops necessary and thus our method remains stable on multiply connected geometries. The numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach for both canonical and realistic (multi-scale) problems.
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.