Comparison between EEG and MEG of static and dynamic resting-state networks

Abstract

The characterisation of resting state networks (RSNs) using neuroimaging techniques has significantly contributed to our understanding of the organisation of brain activity. Prior work has demonstrated the electrophysiological basis of RSNs and their dynamic nature, revealing transient activations of brain networks with millisecond timescales. While previous research has confirmed the comparability of RSNs identified by electroencephalography (EEG) to those identified by magnetoencephalography (MEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), most studies have utilised static analysis techniques, ignoring the dynamic nature of brain activity. Often, these studies use high-density EEG systems, which limit their applicability in clinical settings. Addressing these gaps, our research studies RSNs using medium-density EEG systems (61 sensors), comparing both static and dynamic brain network features to those obtained from a high-density MEG system (306 sensors). We assess the qualitative and quantitative comparability of EEG-derived RSNs to those from MEG, including their ability to capture age-related effects, and explore the reproducibility of dynamic RSNs within and across the modalities. Our findings suggest that both MEG and EEG offer comparable static and dynamic network descriptions, albeit with MEG offering some increased sensitivity and reproducibility. Such RSNs and their comparability across the two modalities remained consistent qualitatively but not quantitatively when the data were reconstructed without subject-specific structural MRI images.