Recording brain activities in unshielded Earth's field with optically pumped atomic magnetometers.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the relationship between brain activity and specific mental function is important for medical diagnosis of brain symptoms, such as epilepsy. Magnetoencephalography (MEG), which uses an array of high-sensitivity magnetometers to record magnetic field signals generated from neural currents occurring naturally in the brain, is a noninvasive method for locating the brain activities. The MEG is normally performed in a magnetically shielded room. Here, we introduce an unshielded MEG system based on optically pumped atomic magnetometers. We build an atomic magnetic gradiometer, together with feedback methods, to reduce the environment magnetic field noise. We successfully observe the alpha rhythm signals related to closed eyes and clear auditory evoked field signals in unshielded Ea

SUBMITTER: Zhang R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7292643 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature