New Frontiers In Biomagnetism

NEW FRONTIERS IN BIOMAGNETISM contains selected papers based on presentations at the 15th International Conference on Biomagnetism (Biomag 2006), held in Vancouver between the 20th and 26th of August, 2006. The conference brought together over 500 scientists and specialists from around the world to present the latest scientific and technological developments in the field of Biomagnetism - the measurement of magnetic signals produced by electric currents in the human body. The study of the minute magnetic fields resulting from heart and muscle contraction, signal conduction in the nervous system, or by the magnetization of biological tissue has grown steadily since the 5th World Conference on Biomagnetism that was held in Vancouver in August of 1984.Although the conference covered many facets of biomagnetism research, the focus for this year's conference was on new frontiers in biomagnetism - the development of new applications and areas of research. One emphasis was on the application of Magnetoencephalography (MEG) to the study of human development and its potential to help understand the physiological underpinnings of language and cognitive development in children, including neurodevelopmental disorders, such as Down Syndrome, autism and language impairment. There were also many exciting contributions on the latest techniques for the precise localization of brain activity using MEG, and related methods for the study of brain dynamics and distributed networks of neural activity. These novel approaches to the study of human brain function promise to provide new insights into the organization of neural systems underlying motor planning, perception, memory and cognition. Other areas of rapid development discussed in New Frontiers in Biomagnetism include the application of biomagnetic measures in the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy, psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, and the use of MEG for presurgical functional mapping. Special sessions were also dedicated to the latest developments in Magnetocardiography (MCG) for the assessment of cardiovascular disease and associated disorders of the electrical activity of the heart. This year's conference also held a special symposium in honour of the late Sam Williamson, with presentations from his former colleagues and students that reviewed his life's work and contributions to the field of neuromagnetism. NEW FRONTIERS IN BIOMAGNETISM aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the latest developments in the field of Biomagnetism and its application to the study of human biological systems. The many new developments and breakthroughs presented at Biomag 2006 made a significant contribution to the advancement of the understanding of brain and cardiac function and provided new tools for clinical applications of this new knowledge.

Biomagnetism is the study of magnetic fields that originate in biological systems. This is a relatively new discipline that has attracted considerable interest throughout the scientific commu- ty. The study of biomagnetic fields requires the use of techniques and concepts drawn from widely disparate scientific disciplines. To make these techniques and concepts available to a wide spectrum of the scientific community, a NATO Advanced study Institute on B- magnetism was held near Frascati at Grottaferrata, Italy, in S- tember 1982. This volume is based on the lectures delivered by scholars representing many different scientific areas, ranging from solid state physics to psychology. It attempts to preserve the - herent development of concepts drawn from physiology, psychology, biology, physics, medicine, occupational health and geology that was evident during the Institute. The reader will quickly become aware that the progress in biomagnetism over the past decade was due principally to the efforts of interdisciplinary teams of sci- tists. One of the purposes of this volume is to make all of the basic principles and findings of biomagnetism available in one place, so that scientists who have already embarked on the study of biomagnetism or who plan to do so in the near future will have them available for study and reference. Each section of this volume was written by a recognized expert who lectured at the Institute on the topics he describes here.

Biomagnetism involves the investigation of bioelectric processes as reflected by their accompanying magnetic fields. These processes can be monitored in the brain, heart, peripheral nerve or gastrointestinal tract. SQUID technology can also be used for biosusceptometry in lung, liver and intestines. Biomagnetism also includes theoretical issues as encountered in the inverse problem, modelling, fundamentals, physics and mathematics of the method, technical applications and instrumentation, as well as future aspects.

This authoritative volume provides an overview of basic and advanced techniques used in quantitative EEG (qEEG) analysis. The book provides a wide range of mathematical tools used in qEEG, from single channel discriptors to the interactions among multi-channel EEG analysis. Moreover, you find coverage of the latest and most popular application in the field, including mental and neurological disease detection/monitoring, physiological and cognitive phenomena research, and fMRI.

The mystery of how migrating animals find their way over unfamiliar terrain has intrigued people for centuries, and has been the focus of productive research in the biological sci ences for several decades. Whether or not the earth's magnetic field had anything to do with their navigational abilities has sufaced and been dismissed several times, beginning at least in the mid to late 1800s. This topic generally remained out of the mainstream of scientific research for two reasons: (1) The apparent irreproducibility of many of the be havioral experiments which were supposed to demonstrate the existence of the magnetic sense; and (2) Perceived theoretical difficulties which were encountered when biophysi cists tried to understand how such a sensory system might operate. However, during the mid to late 1960s as the science of ethology (animal behavior) grew, it became clear from studies on bees and birds that the geomagnetic field is used under a variety of conditions. As more and more organisms were found to have similar abilities, the problem shifted back to the question as to the basis of this perception. Of the various schemes for trans ducing the geomagnetic field to the nervous system which have been proposed, the hy pothesis of magnetite-based magnetoreception discussed at length in this volume has per haps the best potential for explaining a wide range of these effects, even though this link is as yet clear only in the case of magnetotactic bacteria.

40th anniversary of "medical uses of SQUID" th It is my great pleasure and honor to invite you to the 17 International Conference on Biomagnetism – Biomag2010 held in Dubrovnik, Croatia from Sunday, March 28 through Thursday, April 1, 2010. The interdisciplinary field of biomagnetism includes dynamic and evolving SQUID-based technologies offering advanced real-time methods for noninvasive assessments of magnetic signals from the brain, heart and other organs as well as a range of modeling, mathematical and computational methods for functional source localization approaches. Excellent spatial resolution and unique, millisecond, temporal resolution of biomagnetic techniques allow insights into cortical neurodynamics and neurobiological basis of the human brain as well as assessment of heart and other organs functions in health and disease. Biomag2010 will be a great opportunity for an exchange of ideas and presentation of the latest developments in instrumentation, modeling approaches, basic and clinical biomedical studies. We are particularly proud to announce the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the first SQUID-based MCG measurements published on April 1, 1970. Since then ''medical uses of SQUID'' were dynamic and growing, including the most recent developments, in combination with a low field MRI, toward a ''direct neuronal imaging''. Dubrovnik, the host city of the Biomag2010, a jewel on the Adriatic, will be a superb and stimulating setting for both scientific and social aspects of this meeting. I am looking forward to hosting you in Dubrovnik, Croatia in spring of 2010.

This book is a succinct introduction to the orienting of attention. Richard Wright and Lawrence Ward describe the covert orienting literature clearly and concisely, illustrating it with numerous high-quality images, specifically designed to make the challenging theoretical concepts very accessible. The book begins with an historical introduction that provides a great deal of information about orienting, much of which will be new even to seasoned researchers. Wright and Ward then systematically describe the development of various experimental paradigms that have been devised to study covert orienting, and the theoretical issues raised by this research. One trend that they analyze in detail is the progression from relatively simple models of spatial attention (attention spotlight and zoom lens models) to an integrative computational framework based on a concept called the "activity distribution." They also present a comprehensive survey of cognitive neuroscience research on the brain mechanisms underlying spatial attention shifts, as well as a chapter summarizing recent research on crossmodal attention shifts, and elucidating the links between attention orienting in the visual, auditory, and tactile domains. In the Epilogue they offer a concise summary of the book, and develop preliminary frameworks for understanding the relationship between spatial attention and orienting in response to social cues (social cognitive neuroscience) and for describing the evolution of covert orienting. Orienting of Attention provides a systematic survey that is ideal for those looking for an accessible introduction to the field and also for students and researchers who want a state-of the-art overview.

Recent developments in the tools and techniques of data acquisition and analysis in cognitive electrophysiology.