University College London MEG lab

UCL MEG lab

Research topics

The core MEG research at University College London (UCL) aims both to develop new analysis methods, and to develop and implement new wearable MEG sensors. This is done through simulations, comparisons with known structure-function relationships of the brain, comparisons with MRI and fMRI, as well as with direct invasive recordings. While the analysis methods enable us to harness the structural information carried in the functional MEG signals and thus maximise the spatial resolution of MEG, the new sensors can be placed flexibly and directly on the scalp, which has several significant advantages. The signal-to-noise ratio is improved approximately 5-fold, and while healthy participants can be scanned while carrying out natural behaviours and tasks (without having their head constrained), the sensors also enable scanning of children, several new patient groups, and highly specific brain structures which were all previously inaccessible.

Moreover, the MEG scanner is used for experiments carried out by researchers at the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging across the following research groups: Awareness, Cognition, Emotion and Psychiatric Disorders, Computational Psychiatry, Decision & Emotion, Language, Memory & Space, Metacognition, Neurobiology of Sound, and Theoretical Neurobiology.

The MEG imaging software developed by the methods group at UCL is distributed within the Statistical Parametric Mapping package: http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm/.

Likewise, the stimulus presentation software developed is available: http://www.vislab.ucl.ac.uk/cogent.php.

Research facilities and equipment

The MEG lab at UCL houses a 275-channel CTF (Canadian Thin Films) Omega system. It is located in a 3-layer shielded room in the basement of the building, and is fully equipped to deliver visual, auditory and tactile stimulation, and record eye movement and pupil size, electromyography, electroencephalography, heart rate and skin conductance. We also have a set of flexible subject-specific foam head-casts, used to stabilise the head between and within scans.

The Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging also features three 3T Siemens MRI scanners and, soon to come, a 7T MRI scanner.

Location

The MEG lab at UCL is situated at the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging in Queen Square in London.

People

Rick Adams
Academic Clinical Lecturer in Psychiatry
Schizophrenia

Gareth Barnes
Professor & Head of Magnetoencephalography (MEG)
Models & Applications

Daniel Barry
Post-doc
Memory & Imagination

Daniel Bates
MEG Radiographer
All experimental projects

Alexander Billig
Post-doc
Auditory Perception & Memory

David Bradbury
Laboratory Manager
All experimental projects

Neil Burgess
Professor
Space & Memory

Daniel Bush
Post-doc
Space & Memory

Maria Chait
Professor
Auditory Perception & Cognition

Henry Coley-Fisher
Research Assistant
Naming Therapy in Dementia

Pradeep Dheerendra
PhD Student
Auditory Perception & Cognition

Sam Erira
PhD Student
Social Cognition (self-other distinction)

Tobias U. Hauser
Post-doc
Decision Making & Psychiatric Disorders

Sheila Kerry
PhD Student
Neurotherapeutics

Alex Leff
NIHR Research Professor
Language Recovery in Patients with Stroke & Dementia

Chin-Hsuan Lin
Post-doc
Cerebellum & Predictive Coding

Simon Little
Post-doc
Motor Control

Yunzhe Liu
PhD Student
Representation & Learning

Vladimir Litvak
Senior Lecturer
Simultaneous MEG & Intracranial Recordings

Eleanor Maguire
Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience
Memory & Space

Sofie Meyer
Post-doc
Space & Memory

Anna Monk
PhD Student
Memory & Space

Elliot Murphy
PhD Student
Linguistic Combinatorics

Zita E. Patai
Post-doc
Memory & Navigation

Nitzan Shahar
Post-doc
Action-Control in ADHD

Yoshihito Shigihara
Director at Precision Medicine Centre, Hokuto Hospital, Japan (formerly MEG radiographer at UCL)
Vision, Epilepsy & Precision Medicine

Tim Tierney
Post-doc
Optically Pumped Magnetometers

Umesh Vivekananda
Post-doc
Epilepsy & Sleep

Tim West
PhD Student
Parkinson’s Disease

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