Exploring the brain

Brain sensing

Fully understanding how the human brain works, and what functions differently in disease, remains a mystery to neuroscientists and clinicians alike. Considerable research is needed on this most complex part of the body, which consists of a network of ~100 billion electrical cells – neurons – passing electrical pulses to each other via around 700 trillion connections.

How do we explore the secrets of the brain?

One of the key areas of research at the UK Quantum Technology Research Hub in Sensing, Imaging and Timing is furthering quantum research in magnetometry, specifically in healthcare. Researchers are exploiting Magnetoencephalography (MEG) techniques, which measures the magnetic fields produced by the brain’s electrical currents. This differs from more conventional techniques, for example fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) technology, which measures changes in blood flow to active brain regions.

Following considerable testing, Cerca Magnetics Ltd – a spin-out company set up by University of Nottingham Hub academics – was launched in 2020, aiming to bring the world’s most advanced brain scanner to research and commercial markets. This brain scanner is specially designed to allow people to move freely whilst being scanned and offers unprecedented window on brain function, giving new hope to people suffering with severe neurological illnesses, such as epilepsy.

Building on these successes, a next-generation of OPM-MEG hardware and shielding have been developed and applied to naturalistic movement, driving skills, motor learning, gait, epilepsy and child neurodevelopment studies. The electronics have been miniaturised into a wearable backpack, and the team’s developments in shielding now allow for significant movement within the shielded room, and multiple simultaneous participants.

Similar techniques are being applied to foetal monitoring. The foetal heart output can be isolated from the mother’s using a foetal magnetocardiography belt, allowing the monitoring of foetal electrophysiological activity and the creation of field maps. Triaxial optically pumped magnetometer (OPM) sensors, from QuSpin, have been designed into OPM magnetoencephalography (MEG) systems which the team have developed and evaluated, concluding that triaxial sensors supersede the initially proposed hybrid approach to interference rejection and differentiation of brain signals from background magnetic fields.

Testing the brain scanner

Since its launch in 2021, Cerca has had considerable success, with testing and implementation at Young Epilepsy, and the Hospital for Sick Kids in Toronto for use on patients, and recently, at an Ivy League University in North America for a brand-new facility bringing together a range of neuroscientific research from wearable neurotechnology to immersive behavioural environments.