A new computational approach for cortical imaging

Estimation of current or potential distribution on the cortex is used to ob tain information about neural sources from the scalp recorded electroenceph alogram. If the active sources in the brain are superficial, the estimated field distribution on the cortex also yields information about the active s ource configuration. In these cases, these methods can be used as source lo calization methods,In this study, we concentrate on finite-element-based co rtex potential estimation, Usually these methods require surface interpolat ion of the recorded voltages at the electrodes onto the entire scalp surfac e. We propose a new computational approach which does not require the use o f surface interpolation but does it implicitly and uses only the recorded d ata at the electrodes, We refer to this method as the systematic approach ( SA), We compare the SA with the surface interpolation approach (IA) and sho w that the SA is able to produce somewhat better accuracy than the IA, Howe ver, the main asset is that the sensitivity of the cortical potential maps to regularization parameter is significantly lower than with the IA.