CIBC:Workshops:Workshop06:summ-dalal

From NCRR Biomedical Software Development, Engineering, and Dissemination Wiki

Summary for Simon Warfield

Affiliation

Sarang S. Dalal: <sarang@hurricane.ucsf.edu>

Summary

I am a PhD candidate with the UCSF/UC Berkeley program in Bioengineering. My research involves developing source reconstructions for magnetoencephalography (MEG -- a noninvasive magnetic brainwave technique) and validating our results with electrocorticography (direct brain recordings from neurosurgery patients). I am the lead developer of NUTMEG, a software toolbox designed to aid in this type of research. (See http://bil.ucsf.edu/nutmeg.html )

One significant limitation to localizing events in the brain with MEG and EEG involves having a robust head model, i.e., an accurate way to estimate the voltages and magnetic fields that would be detected at points on the scalp due to current sources at given points within the brain. Currently, the most common technique involves fitting one or several homogeneous spheres to the scalp surface; however, these models are not adequate as real human heads are not spherical and the tissues within it have complex conductivity profiles. SCIRun and BioFEM implement finite element modeling techniques based on structural MRIs in order to generate an advanced head model based on individual anatomy.

Such a head model may be key to more accurately localizing brain activity, or indeed localizing deeper and weaker sources at all. My goal in attending the workshop is to become comfortable with SCIRun and learn how to generate these head models for use in my research. I currently do not have the funding to attend the workshop otherwise.