Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (Dec 2014)
Magnetoencephalography Detection of High-Frequency Oscillations in the Developing Brain
Abstract
Increasing evidence from invasive intracranial recordings suggests that the matured brain generates both physiological and pathological high-frequency signals. The present study was designed to detect high-frequency brain signals in the developing brain using newly developed magnetoencephalography (MEG) methods. Twenty healthy children were studied with a high sampling rate MEG system. Functional high-frequency brain signals were evoked by electrical stimulation applied to the index fingers. To determine if the high-frequency neuromagnetic signals are true brain responses in high-frequency range, we analyzed the MEG data using the conventional averaging as well as newly developed time-frequency analysis along with beamforming. The data of healthy children showed that very high-frequency brain signals (> 1000 Hz) in the somatosensory cortex in the developing brain could be detected and localized using MEG. The amplitude of very high-frequency brain signals was significantly weaker than that of the low-frequency brain signals. Very high-frequency brain signals showed a much earlier latency than those of a low-frequency. Magnetic source imaging (MSI) revealed that a portion of the high-frequency signals was from the somatosensory cortex, another portion of the high-frequency signals was probably from the thalamus. Our results provide evidence that the developing brain generates high-frequency signals that can be detected with the noninvasive technique of MEG. MEG detection of high-frequency brain signals may open a new window for the study of developing brain function.
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