On the Biomagnetic Inverse Problem in the Case of Multiple Dipoles

Series of Monte Carlo simulations have been carried out which were based on the assumption that two dipoles with a distance of 0.5–2 cm are located in a homogeneous semi-infinite volume conductor (depth 3 cm), and that the magnetic field component perpendicular to the surface of the volume conductor is recorded by means of a magnetometer with infinitesimal coil diameter. Moving-dipole models (all parameters time-dependent), rotating-dipole models (dipole locations fixed, dipole orientation and amplitudes time-dependent) as well as fixed-dipole models (dipole locations and orientations fixed, amplitudes time-dependent) were considered. The algorithm used to retrieve the model parameters from the simulated field distributions (biomagnetic inverse procedure) was based on a transformation of the standard least-squares fit procedure into a minimization procedure with respect to the nonlinear parameters (dipole locations and orientations), which was solved iteratively by means of the Fletcher-Powell algorithm. ...