Cardiff University MEG lab

Research topics

Since the opening of the lab back in 2006, MEG research in Cardiff has focused on the origin and role of cortical oscillatory signals, with particular emphasis on gamma oscillations in the visual system. Typically, we study oscillations with simple, well-established sensory-motor tasks, in the context of both normal and pathological brain function.

Two key aspects of our approach to human neuroscience are the incorporation of animal models in the generation of our experimental hypotheses and the study of the relationship between MEG and fMRI signals. We adopt systematic pharmacological manipulations as a tool to probe the neurophysiological mechanisms generating frequency-specific oscillations in the sensory-motor system.

Importantly, understanding the origin of these electrophysiological signals bears the potential for both the development of markers of disease and for the advancement of drug discovery. In this perspective, our research efforts extend to the analysis of neuronal signals at the network level. This ranges from the fine-grained models of neuronal function in cortical microcircuits, implemented with dynamic causal modelling (DCM), to the analysis of oscillatory signals originating from distant cortical regions at the whole-brain level, using both functional and effective connectivity analysis methods.

Research facilities and equipment

The MEG lab at Cardiff University is equipped with a 275 channel CTF axial gradiometer system. The MEG is located in a large magnetically shielded room (5×4 m), which is particularly well-suited to clinical and pharmacological studies. Vision studies are performed using a state-of-the-art PROPixx projection system (VPixx) and an EyeLink 1000 Plus eye-tracker (SR Research).

A description of the MEG lab setup is available at the following link: http://sites.cardiff.ac.uk/cubric/facilities/meg.

Location

The MEG laboratory at Cardiff University is part of the new CUBRIC Building, which opened in March 2016. More information about CUBRIC is available at the following link: http://sites.cardiff.ac.uk/cubric/.