A novel hybrid Wireless Integrated Sensing Detector for simultaneous EEG and MRI (WISDEM)

Concurrent recording of EEG/fMRI signals reveals cross-scale neurovascular dynamics that are crucial for elucidating fundamental linkage between function and behaviors. However, MRI scanners generate tremendous artifacts for EEG detection. Despite existing denoising methods, cabled connections to EEG receivers are susceptible to environmental fluctuations inside MRI scanners, creating baseline drifts that complicate EEG signal retrieval from the noisy background. Here, a Wireless Integrated Sensing Detector for simultaneous EEG and MRI (WISDEM) is developed to encode fMRI and EEG signals on distinct sidebands of the detector oscillation carrier wave for detection by a standard MRI console over the entire duration of fMRI sequence. Local field potential (LFP) and fMRI maps are retrieved through low-pass and high-pass filtering of frequency-demodulate signals. From optogenetically-stimulated somatosensory cortex, the positive correlation between evoked LFP and fMRI signals validates strong neurovascular coupling, enabling cross-scale brain mapping with this 2-in-1 transducer as a research and diagnostic tool.