Dynamical activities of primary somatosensory cortices studied by magnetoencephalography

A blind identification method of transfer functions in feedback systems is introduced for examination of dynamical activities of cortices by magnetoencephalography study. Somatosensory activities are examined in 5 Hz periodical median nerve stimulus. In the present paper, we will try two careful preprocessing procedures for the identification method to obtain impulse responses between primary somatosensory cortices. Time series data of the somatosensory evoked field are obtained by using a blind source separation of the T/k type (fractional) decorrelation method. Time series data of current dipoles of primary somatosensory cortices are transformed from the time series data of the somatosensory evoked field by the inverse problem. Fluctuations of current dipoles of them are obtained after elimination of deterministic periodical evoked waveforms. An identification method based on feedback system theory is used for estimation of transfer functions in a feedback model from obtained fluctuations of currents dipoles of primary somatosensory cortices. Dynamical activities between them are presented by Bode diagrams of transfer functions and their impulse responses: the time delay of about 30 ms via corpus callosum is found in the impulse response of identified transfer function.