A new method for simultaneous recording of EEG and fMRI

A new method is proposed to perform the simultaneous recording of EEG and fMRI using dedicated EEG hardware and software specifically developed for artifact rejection. In order to test the system, 3 pilot experiments were performed. The first consisted of recording the variations in alpha-rhythm which were time-locked to the experimental paradigm. The second and third experiments consisted of recording the visual evoked potential (VEP) inside the scanner with and without acquiring fMRI data respectively. The corrected data of experiment 1 clearly shows the variation of the a-rhythm, time locked to the paradigm, both in the time and frequency domains. The comparison of the VEPs computed from experiments 2 and 3 clearly shows that the correction algorithm is able to efficiently remove the artifacts in such a way that the VEP can be measured. This work shows the ability of the proposed method to record simultaneous EEG and fMRI data, thus strongly suggesting its future application in brain imaging studies.