DIPOLE SOURCE LOCALIZATION BY MEANS OF MAXIMUM-LIKELIHOOD-ESTIMATION I - THEORY AND SIMULATIONS

By analyzing simulated neuromagnetic recordings with a 37 channel magn etometer system, it was shown that the accuracy of a dipole source loc alization is considerably improved if the standard least-squares fit p rocedure is replaced by a maximum likelihood estimation accounting for the covariances of the noise in the measurement channels. Spatially c orrelated noise was generated by random dipoles homogeneously distribu ted in a sphere representing the brain. The study suggests that a maxi mum likelihood estimation reduces the standard deviations of the estim ated dipole parameters by roughly a factor of two. (C) 1998 Elsevier S cience ireland Ltd.