On the EEG/MEG forward problem solution for distributed cortical sources

In studies of EEG/MEG problems involving cortical sources, the cortex may be modeled by a 2-D manifold inside the brain. In such cases the primary or impressed current density over this manifold is usually approximated by a set of dipolar sources located at the vertices of the cortical surface tessellation. In this study, we analyze the different errors induced by this approximation on the EEG/MEG forward problem. Our results show that in order to obtain more accurate solutions of the forward problems with the multiple dipoles approximation, the moments of the dipoles should be weighted by the area of the surrounding triangles, or using an alternative approximation of the primary current as a constant or linearly varying current density over plane triangular elements of the cortical surface tessellation. This should be taken into account when computing the lead field matrix for solving the EEG/MEG inverse problem in brain imaging methods.