Movement-related neuromagnetic fields in preschool age children.

We examined sensorimotor brain activity associated with voluntary movements in preschool children using a customized pediatric magnetoencephalographic system. A videogame-like task was used to generate self-initiated right or left index finger movements in 17 healthy right-handed subjects (8 females, ages 3.2-4.

Multimodal functional imaging of motor imagery using a novel paradigm.

Neuroimaging studies have shown that the neural mechanisms of motor imagery (MI) overlap substantially with the mechanisms of motor execution (ME). Surprisingly, however, the role of several regions of the motor circuitry in MI remains controversial, a variability that may be due to differences in neuroimaging techniques, MI training, instruction types, or tasks used to evoke MI. The objectives of this study were twofold: (i) to design a novel task that reliably invokes MI, provides a reliable behavioral measure of MI performance, and is transferable across imaging modalities; and (ii) to measure the common and differential activations for MI and ME with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and magnetoencephalography (MEG).

How the brain responds to any: an MEG study.

The word any may appear in some sentences, but not in others. For example, any is permitted in sentences that contain the word nobody, as in Nobody ate any fruit. However, in a minimally different context any seems strikingly anomalous: (*)Everybody ate any fruit.

Measurement of neuromagnetic brain function in pre-school children with custom sized MEG.

Magnetoencephalography is a technique that detects magnetic fields associated with cortical activity [1]. The electrophysiological activity of the brain generates electric fields - that can be recorded using electroencephalography (EEG)- and their concomitant magnetic fields - detected by MEG. MEG signals are detected by specialized sensors known as superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs).

Measurement of brain function in pre-school children using a custom sized whole-head MEG sensor array.

Objective: Conventional whole-head MEG systems have fixed sensor arrays designed to accommodate most adult heads. However arrays optimised for adult brain measurements are suboptimal for research with the significantly smaller heads of young children. We wished to measure brain activity in children using a novel whole-head MEG system custom sized to fit the heads of pre-school-aged children.