Developments in clinical MEG and its combination with navigated TMS

Abstract

Development of clinical MEG will provide biomarkers of neurodegenerative and developmental disorders by producing functional and effective connectivity measures within and between distinct functional brain areas. It is highly probable that neurodegenerative disorders damage these connections early in their course and detection of such changes will be feasible with sophisticated signal analysis of MEG data. Combining MEG and navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (nTMS) has already proven to be valuable in clinical evaluations. Such combinations will assist us in understanding the complex brain networks and the effective connectivity within them both in the healthy and diseased brains. This chapter reviews developments in clinical MEG research and estimates potential added value by nTMS studies in clarifying pathophysiology of neurological diseases.