The CBU is one of the eight UK sites to offer whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG), and CBU MEG scientists Richard Henson and Yury Shtyrov are part of a nationwide collaborative initiative (led by Professor Krish Singh at Cardiff University) that has recently been awarded £1.3M by the MRC and EPSRC, in order to bring together clinical and scientific MEG research in the UK. Rik Henson said “MEG is the only current non-invasive technology that can measure brain activity at the millisecond timescale, together with reasonable spatial localisation, and has recently proved able to address many neuroscientific questions. However, its use in a clinical context has yet to take-off, and one aim of this partnership is to bring together the MEG experts in the UK to assess potential clinical applications of MEG to epilepsy, dementia, schizophrenia and other neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders”.

Yury Shtyrov said

MEG is by far the most patient-friendly of all modern neuroimaging techniques. Using MEG, patients of any age and having a wide range of conditions can be easily tested without being subjected to the many inconveniences associated with other imaging modalities, such as high levels of noise, use of radioactive substances, skin abrasives or confined scanner environments. Yet, we are only starting to tap into its clinical potential and this UK wide-partnership, which the CBU is proud to be part of, will bring together complementary strengths of different groups to build up clinical MEG capacity.