Localizing brain interactions from rhythmic EEG/MEG data

The interpretation of MEG/EEG data in terms of brain connectivity is largely obscured by artefacts of volume conduction, i.e. by the fact that a single source is observable in many channels. Here, we analyze a measure which is insensitive to spurious connectivity arising from volume conducted "self-interaction". For rhythmic data such a measure can be given by the imaginary part of the cross-spectrum between EEG/MEG channels. For the derivation we essentially exploit that a signal is not time-lagged to itself. To localize the sources of this observed interaction we fit a model cross-spectrum consisting of N interacting dipoles to the sample cross-spectrum. The relation to the maximum likelihood estimator will be discussed in detail. The method is illustrated for MEG data of human alpha rhythm in eyes closed condition. The eigenvalues of the imaginary cross-spectrum clearly indicate the presence of at least 4 necessarily interacting sources. Fits of 2 to 6 dipoles in a realistic volume conductor all resulted in locations scattered in the mesial part of the occipital lobe.