Magnetocardiography and Magnetoencephalography: New Technologies for Fetal Surveillance

Abstract

The fetal magnetocardiogram (FMCG) and fetal magnetoencephalogram (FMEG) are among the most compelling applications of biomagnetism. For fetal surveillance the inherent signal transmission properties of the FMCG and FMEG are highly advantageous, compared to their electrical counterparts, and there is a paucity of alternative functional imaging techniques suitable for routine fetal evaluation. The need to develop new and improved techniques is considerable, as presently there is no single method with high predictive value for the assessment of fetal well-being, and there are no techniques whatsoever that can directly record human neurological activity in utero. While the first FMEG and FMCG studies were published more than ten and twenty years ago, respectively, there was surprisingly little activity in these areas in subsequent years. However, interest in fetal biomagnetism has reemerged recently, as a number of groups have reported findings at meetings and in the literature. This paper presents FMCG and FMEG studies performed by our group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and discusses the potential clinical utility of these techniques.