Auditory evoked responses during ambulatory OP-MEG
7 affiliations
- 1Department of Imaging Neuroscience, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, United Kingdom
- 2Spinal Cord Injury Center, Balgrist University Hospital, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- 3Translational Neuromodeling Unit, Institute for Biomedical Engineering, University of Zurich & ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- 4QuSpin Inc., Louisville, CO, United States
- 5Oxford Centre for Human Brain Activity (OHBA), Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
- 6Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology, University College London, London, United Kingdom
- 7UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, United Kingdom
Abstract
The latest generation of optically pumped magnetometer (OPM)-based magnetoencephalography (OP-MEG) systems are increasingly portable and lightweight, making the system easier to wear while undertaking large, whole-body translational and rotational movements. We recorded OP-MEG from three participants during auditory stimulation, while the participants walked around a magnetically shielded room, moving across an area of at least 1.7 m2 and rotating by at least 180 degrees. All sensor-specific electronics were housed within a wearable backpack, minimising movement restrictions which would otherwise be imposed by sensor cabling. In this experiment, the maximum peak-to-peak range of the observed magnetic field recorded on a single channel was 25.2 nT, considerably beyond the approximately 4 nT range of many previous OP-MEG systems. We show that adaptive multipole modelling (AMM) with the temporal extension can be used to separate the interference and neuromagnetic signals, despite the large degree of movement and proximity of the sensor electronics. We observed significant auditory evoked responses at the sensor level, without the need for source localisation approaches for interference suppression. These findings demonstrate the capability of OP-MEG for conducting naturalistic experiments involving movement and for recordings with paediatric and clinical cohorts who cannot remain still.
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BibTeX
@article{mellor2026auditory,
title = {{Auditory evoked responses during ambulatory OP-MEG}},
author = {Stephanie Mellor and Tim M. Tierney and James Osborne and Meaghan E. Spedden and Robert A. Seymour and Nicholas A. Alexander and Cody Doyle and David Bobela and George C. O’Neill and Katarzyna Rudzka and Sahitya Puvvada and Maike Schmidt and Vishal Shah and Gareth R. Barnes},
journal = {Imaging Neuroscience},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.1162/imag.a.1424},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1162/imag.a.1424},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Auditory evoked responses during ambulatory OP-MEG
AU - Stephanie Mellor
AU - Tim M. Tierney
AU - James Osborne
AU - Meaghan E. Spedden
AU - Robert A. Seymour
AU - Nicholas A. Alexander
AU - Cody Doyle
AU - David Bobela
AU - George C. O’Neill
AU - Katarzyna Rudzka
AU - Sahitya Puvvada
AU - Maike Schmidt
AU - Vishal Shah
AU - Gareth R. Barnes
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/03
JO - Imaging Neuroscience
DO - 10.1162/imag.a.1424
UR - https://doi.org/10.1162/imag.a.1424
AB - The latest generation of optically pumped magnetometer (OPM)-based magnetoencephalography (OP-MEG) systems are increasingly portable and lightweight, making the system easier to wear while undertaking large, whole-body translational and rotational movements. We recorded OP-MEG from three participants during auditory stimulation, while the participants walked around a magnetically shielded room, moving across an area of at least 1.7 m2 and rotating by at least 180 degrees. All sensor-specific electronics were housed within a wearable backpack, minimising movement restrictions which would otherwise be imposed by sensor cabling. In this experiment, the maximum peak-to-peak range of the observed magnetic field recorded on a single channel was 25.2 nT, considerably beyond the approximately 4 nT range of many previous OP-MEG systems. We show that adaptive multipole modelling (AMM) with the temporal extension can be used to separate the interference and neuromagnetic signals, despite the large degree of movement and proximity of the sensor electronics. We observed significant auditory evoked responses at the sensor level, without the need for source localisation approaches for interference suppression. These findings demonstrate the capability of OP-MEG for conducting naturalistic experiments involving movement and for recordings with paediatric and clinical cohorts who cannot remain still.
SN - 2837-6056
ER -