Beamformer-based spatiotemporal imaging of linearly-related source components using electromagnetic neural signals

Functional connectivity calculated using multiple channels of electromagnetic brain signals is often over- or underestimated due to volume conduction or field spread. Considering connectivity measures, coherence is suitable for the detection of rhythmic synchronization, whereas temporal correlation is appropriate for transient synchronization. This paper presents a beamformer-based imaging method, called spatiotemporal imaging of linearly-related source component (SILSC), which is capable of estimating connectivity at the cortical level by extracting the source component with the maximum temporal correlation between the activity of each targeted region and a reference signal. The spatiotemporal correlation dynamics can be obtained by applying SILSC at every brain region and with various time latencies. The results of six simulation studies demonstrated that SILSC is sensitive to detect the source activity correlated to the specified reference signal and is accurate and robust to noise in terms of source localization. In a facial expression imitation experiment, the correlation dynamics estimated by SILSC revealed the regions with mirror properties and the regions involved in motor control network when performing the imitation and execution tasks, respectively, with the left inferior frontal gyrus specified as the reference region.