Visualization of the sensitivity of the magnetoencephalographic sensor array based on the three-dimensional modeling of cortical surface and volume conductor

Here, we present a system to visualize (i) the distribution of magnetoencephalographic (MEG) signal strength in the subject-specific measurement settings predicted by a realistic MEG signal generation model (forward model) and previously published results that are typically presented in the standardized brain coordinates, and (ii) the distribution of the sensitivity of arbitrary selected group of MEG sensors on the subject-specific cortical surface. The current results suggest that (a) our methods to predict MEG field distribution from a priori information about the possible “active” cortical regions obtained from standardized functional magnetic resonance imaging results are useful for determining the sensor sets of interest in the MEG studies for a specific subject under specific measurement condition, and that (b) visualization of the sensitivity of sensor groups could provide the approximate distribution of the MEG sources without solving the MEG inverse problem.