Whole-Head Magnetoencephalogram and Its Application in Developmental Communication Disorders Research: A Review

Abstract

The human brain undergoes tremendous changes during the first decade of life. The susceptibility of the immature central nervous system to factors such as adverse environments and genetic factors is attributed to its plasticity. Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) occur once the immature brain veers off the typical developmental trajectory. However, little is known about the neurophysiological traits of atypically developing children because it is challenging for them to remain still during recording. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is a noninvasive neuroimaging technique with high-spatiotemporal resolution. An ultralow magnetic field produced by neural electrical activity can be detected using a highly sensitive wholehead magnetometer array. Current cryogenic SQUID-MEG combined with individual MRI has shown great potential in reflecting neural activity under resting states and during tasks. MEG instrumentation for children is expected to be an effective tool for investigating brain dynamics, which provides neuropsychological evidence for atypical development in communication ability. In this paper, the advantages of pediatric MEG in neurodevelopmental disorder studies are discussed first and compared with those of several noninvasive functional imaging modalities. Existing commercial pediatric MEG systems are summarized based on their respective characteristics and parameters. State-of-the-art newly emerging sensing techniques based on spinexchange relaxation-free (SERF) along with their application in detecting infants' brain responses are introduced. Recent discoveries on MEG biomarkers in children with NDDs are then summarized concerning disorders that have comorbidities in communication, such as specific language impairment (SLI), autism spectrum disorders (ASD), dyslexia and stuttering. Progress on multimodality research and total-field wearable SERF magnetometers offers insight into the neuropsychological substrates of communication disorders.

An advance in novel intelligent sensory technologies: From an implicit‐tracking perspective of food perception

“…However, it is undesirable to generalize EEG and MEG into the same technique. MEG, this is, specifically focuses on capturing the ultralow magnetic fields—these magnetic fields can be measured remotely from the current source—generated by the brain's electrical activity (Crease, 1991; Liang et al., 2021). MEG is also used to detect the brain waves generated in different areas and analyze brain activity through its amplitude calculated by power spectral density (PSD) analysis (Fred et al., 2022).…”

Decoding N400m Evoked Component: A Tutorial on Multivariate Pattern Analysis for OP-MEG Data

“…Many studies have pointed out the potential use of OP-MEG in unconstrained conditions [ 13 , 14 ], and the effectiveness of OP-MEG has been verified in detecting event-related components under unmoving [ 15 ] and moving conditions [ 16 ], which facilitates MVPA on naturalistic cognition research. Dash et al [ 17 ] compared the performance of magnetometers and gradiometers in decoding imagined and spoken speech from the MEG signals of healthy participants.…”

OMMR: Co-registration toolbox of OPM-MEG and MRI

“…Source localization for OPM-MEG investigates the neural origin of the brain and has a wide application in neuroscience ( Boto et al, 2021 ; Seymour et al, 2021b ) and clinical research ( Liang et al, 2021 ; Feys et al, 2022 ). Reliable source localization results presuppose the interference suppression technique ( Seymour et al, 2021a ), accurate co-registration of the OPM-MEG and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) ( Zetter et al, 2018 ), and source imaging methods ( An et al, 2022a ).…”