EAGER: Magnetometer Arrays to Map Brain Circuitry

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Proposal Title: EAGER: Magnetometer Arrays to Map Brain CircuitryInstitution: University of UtahAbstract Date:04/09/2014The proposed room temperature magnetometer arrays will enable innumerable applications in discoveries of new brain circuits and understanding brain ailments. The ability to image brain activities in behaving humans currently is carried out by functional magnetic resonance imaging or electro-encephalography or magnet-encephalography in very constrained environments. It will also advance the frontiers of biosensing to a much higher sensitivity levels only accessible by superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUID) and atomic vapor magnetometers. Magnetometer arrays with a fewer devices can be used to detect the onset of epilepsy and will find numerous applications in wireless health monitoring devices. The magnetometer array will have enormous impact in relating brain circuitry and activity to behavior; it will enable imaging the brain under stressfull conditions similar to the stress test for the cardiovascular system. The research will be carried out by two graduate students (one of the students is from an underrepresented group) and the results will be widely disseminated and used demonstrating the principles of bio-magnetism, bio-sensing and bio feedback. A novel imaging method capable of whole brain imaging at 100 micron resolution and 1 ms temporal resolution that is fully portable and wireless will be developed. Arrays of small (200 micron), low power (10 nW/device) room temperature micro-electromechanical multiferroic magnetometers with 10^-18 Tesla/Hz0.5 sensitivity will be designed and fabricated. These arrays will be shielded and embedded in a cap and will enable imaging brain activity in behaving humans in our natural environment. Prototypes have already been constructed that perform at better than 10^-15 Tesla/Hz0.5 sensitivity and this project will improve sensitivity by reducing sensor noise with passive and active (feedback) shielding, construct rectilinear arrays of 10,000 magnetometers that can be combined for full brain coverage, and construct telemetry system for wireless communication with the array. Arrays will be validated by unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution of visual cortex allowing high-speed imaging of orientation and ocular dominance columns.