ώρα 11:00 στην αίθουσα του Εργαστηρίου Φυσιολογίας του Α.Π.Θ.

The study of the functions of the human brain requires specific scientific instruments, such as electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG). In EEG/MEG, by measuring the electric/magnetic fields on the head surface, we can infer the distribution of the underlying  neural activity that gives rise to these external fields, and thus, the brain areas that are activated during the task under study or due to a health condition This lecture will provide an introduction to the basic theory and methods for understanding  the types of neural structures that contribute to the EEG/MEG recordings, how the brain activity is monitored with EEG/MEG, and why the collective neural activity can be  modelled macroscopically as dipole sources.Moreover, we will present the basic principles governing the propagation of the electric/magnetic fields, induced by the neural activity, through the different tissues of the human head with the help of the Maxwell equations. Subsequently, we will construct the numerical forward model that relates the neural activity with EEG/ MEG measurements. Finally, we will give a brief introduction on the EEG/MEG inverse problem i.e. how we can estimate the brain activity (location and strength of focal activity) with mathematical algorithms and EEG/MEG recordings.