Research is an important aspect of the UPMC Brain Mapping Center (BMC) which houses the TRIUX neo MEG system. Ajay Niranjan, MD, MBA, is the director of the BMC and Brian Coffman, PhD, assistant professor with the University of Pittsburgh Department of Psychiatry, is the director of research. The aim of magnetoencephalography (MEG) research is to facilitate, develop, and advance clinical and basic neuroscience research using MEG. To this end, Dr. Coffman is helping to develop new research applications for MEG in collaboration with researchers throughout the community and providing guidance to researchers considering the application of MEG to their research program.
MEG is the most powerful functional neuroimaging technique for noninvasively recording magnetic fields generated by electrophysiological brain activity, providing millisecond temporal resolution at a spatial resolution far exceeding other neurophysiological imaging methods.
MEG is currently being used to study the healthy brain—both in adults and during development—to understand the neural basis of cognitive processes, including reading, vision, audition, motor control, semantic memory, executive functioning, emotional processing, and working memory. Furthermore, research groups at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University are also using MEG to investigate neurophysiological dysfunction in a host of pathologies, including TBI, schizophrenia, spinal cord injury, HIV-AIDS, epilepsy, autism spectrum disorders, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. MEG currently supports both presurgical clinical services and several major (R01 or equivalent) NIH grants.
MEG research at the UPMC Brain Mapping Center continues to increase the impact on scientific understanding of the brain, with 7-10 publications and more than 100 citations every year for the last four years.