MEG LAB

Established at the Maryland Neuromaging Center in 2014, the KIT-UMD Magnetoencephalography Lab is one of approximately 200 MEG centers worldwide. The Yokogawa/KIT/Ricoh Company MEG device allows fully non-invasive measurements of brain activity by recording magnetic fields generated by neuronal currents at 160 different sites around the head. In order to measure these extremely weak magnetic fields, the scanner uses highly sensitive SQUIDS (Superconductive Quantum Interference Devices) and  the entire machine is kept inside of a magnetically shielded room, isolating the sensors from environmental electromagnetic noise.

 The MEG lab also offers concurrent electroencephalography (EEG) scanning using specialized non-ferromagnetic BioSemi equipment. Also fully non-invasive, our EEG caps record electric currents produced by brain activity at 32 electrode sites on the scalp. Concurrent MEG and EEG scanning allows researchers to collect extremely rich data, since the two methods detect activity from neuronal sources with different dipole orientations and depths. 

To support quality data collection and analysis, the KIT-UMD MEG Lab provides a dedicated stimulus delivery computer, a calibrated stimulus delivery system, magnetic and vibrational noise reference acquisition systems, seven dedicated data acquisition computers, a 3D head-shape digitization system, three computers dedicated to data analysis and long-term data storage. The MEG lab also has an EyeLink 1000 for eye-tracking and pupillometry, a non-ferromagnetic microphone for recording speech, and electromyography (EMG) equipment for recording muscle activity. All additional pieces of equipment are compatible with concurrent MEG scanning.

The facility has been used by a wide variety of departments across campus, including electrical and computer engineering, biology, linguistics, psychology, and hearing and speech sciences. A full-time lab manager is available to provide training to new researchers and aid with experimental planning, data collection, and data analysis. The lab welcomes users from within the University of Maryland, College Park and from neighboring institutions.