Research applications
MEG is used for various research purposes especially in understanding neurophysiological mechanism of neuropsychiatric disorders. Recent studies have reported successful classification of patients with multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, traumatic brain injury, schizophrenia, Sjogren’s syndrome, chronic alcoholism, and facial pain. MEG can be used to distinguish these patients from healthy control subjects, suggesting a future role of MEG in diagnostics.
Psychologists are also taking advantage of MEG neuroimaging to better understand relationships between brain function and behaviour. There has been great success isolating unique responses in patients with schizophrenia, such as auditory gating deficits to human voices. MEG is also being used to correlate standard psychological responses, such as the emotional dependence of language comprehension.