Influence of white matter anisotropy on EEG source localization: An experimental study

The goal of this study was to experimentally investigate the influence of the white matter (WM) anisotropy on the EEG source localization. We acquired both visual evoked potential (VEP) and functional MRI (fMRI) data from three human subjects presented with identical visual stimuli. A finite element method (FEM) head model with or without incorporating the WM anisotropy was built to solve the EEG forward problems, and single-dipole source localization was subsequently performed based on the N75 VEP component. The localized dipole positions were quantitatively compared with the locations of the fMRI activations within the primary visual cortex (V1). The results show that the distance between the localized N75 dipole position and the fMRI V1 activation center was slightly smaller when using an anisotropic model than when using an isotropic model. This experimental study suggests that compared to the conventional isotropic model, the anisotropic models incorporating realistic WM anisotropic conductivity distributions do not significantly improve the accuracy of the EEG dipole localization within V1.