Section: Application Domains

Brain source imaging

Epilepsies constitute a common neurological disorder that affects about 1% of the world population. As the epileptic seizure is a dynamic phenomenon, imaging techniques showing static images of the brain (MRI, PET scan) are frequently not the best tools to identify the brain area of interest. Electroencephalography (EEG) is the technique most indicated to capture transient events directly related to the underlying epileptic pathology (like interictal spikes, in particular). EEG convey essential information regarding brain (patho-)physiological activity. In addition, recording techniques of surface signals have the major advantage of being noninvasive. For this reason, an increased use in the context of epilepsy surgery is most wanted. However, to reach this objective, we have to solve an electromagnetic inverse problem, that is to say to estimate the current generators underlying noisy EEG data. Theoretically, a specific electromagnetic field pattern may be generated by an infinite number of current distributions. The considered inverse problem, called "brain source imaging problem", is then said to be ill-posed.