Best Current Practice for Obtaining High Quality EEG Data During Simultaneous fMRI

Simultaneous EEG-fMRI allows the excellent temporal resolution of EEG to be combined with the high spatial accuracy of fMRI. The data from these two modalities can be combined in a number of ways, but all rely on the acquisition of high quality EEG and fMRI data. EEG data acquired during simultaneous fMRI are affected by several artifacts, including the gradient artefact (due to the changing magnetic field gradients required for fMRI), the pulse artefact (linked to the cardiac cycle) and movement artifacts (resulting from movements in the strong magnetic field of the scanner, and muscle activity). Post-processing methods for successfully correcting the gradient and pulse artifacts require a number of criteria to be satisfied during data acquisition. Minimizing head motion during EEG-fMRI is also imperative for limiting the generation of artifacts.

Interactions between the radio frequency (RF) pulses required for MRI and the EEG hardware may occur and can cause heating. This is only a significant risk if safety guidelines are not satisfied. Hardware design and set-up, as well as careful selection of which MR sequences are run with the EEG hardware present must therefore be considered.

The above issues highlight the importance of the choice of the experimental protocol employed when performing a simultaneous EEG-fMRI experiment. Based on previous research we describe an optimal experimental set-up. This provides high quality EEG data during simultaneous fMRI when using commercial EEG and fMRI systems, with safety risks to the subject minimized. We demonstrate this set-up in an EEG-fMRI experiment using a simple visual stimulus. However, much more complex stimuli can be used. Here we show the EEG-fMRI set-up using a Brain Products GmbH (Gilching, Germany) MRplus, 32 channel EEG system in conjunction with a Philips Achieva (Best, Netherlands) 3T MR scanner, although many of the techniques are transferable to other systems.