Hi,
I’m at MIT, where we are hoping to set up a MEG lab within the McGovern
Institute for Brain Research. We’re planning to buy an Elekta Neuromag
machine, and we’ve been in touch with Elekta about shielding requirements.
Before we make a decision about shielding, I’m hoping to get some opinions
from MEG users with experience in this area.
Our site is noisy (subway, vehicle traffic etc; probably among the noisiest of
any MEG sites) and Elekta has recommended that we use either a 3-layer
shielded room or a 2-layer shielded room with active compensation. A 3-layer
room will be a lot more expensive (especially given that the pre-installation
costs will also be greater) and we’re hoping to understand what we would gain
relative to the 2-layer alternative.
Our MEG lab will be a pure research facility, and will not be used for clinical
treatment (although we plan to do research studies on clinical
populations). We expect to attract a wide range of users, with interests in
basic mechanisms of cognition as well as brain disorders. We do a lot of
functional and structural MRI studies here, and we’d expect to incorporate
MEG into many of these projects in future. Being at MIT we are surrounded
by plenty of expertise in electrical engineering and computer science, so we’d
be hoping to engage some of those people as collaborators, and potentially to
develop new analytical methods for MEG research. But right now we don’t
have a lot of experience of MEG, so we’ll be somewhat dependent on outside
advice to get started.
As I understand, the active compensation system that Elekta recommends in
the case of a 2-layer room is the same one that is used on their
lighter ‘MaxShield’ rooms. I would therefore be interested to hear from anyone
who has experience using MaxShield, or experience in dealing with noisy
environments in general.
I am attaching the site survey report that we received from Elekta, plus the
raw data recordings. (The report discusses several different rooms, but we are
looking specifically at room 1145 and 1149.)
Thanks for your thoughts!
Regards,
Charles Jennings
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Charles Jennings, Ph.D.
Director, Neurotechnology Program
McGovern Institute for Brain Research
MIT 46-3160
Cambridge, MA 02139
(617) 324 3977
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