A fast method to compute the potential in the multisphere model (EEG application)

A series expansion is derived for the potential distribution, caused by a dipole source in a multilayered sphere with piecewise constant conductivity. When the radial coordinate of the source approaches the radial coordinate of the field point the spherical harmonics expansion converges only very slowly. It is shown how the convergence can be improved by first calculating an asymptotic approximation of the potential and using the so-called addition-subtraction method. Since the asymptotic solution is an approximation of the true solution, it gives some insight on the dependence of the potential on the conductivities. The formulas are given in Cartesian coordinates, so that difficulties with coordinate transformations are avoided. Attention is paid to the (fast) computation of the partial derivatives of the potential, which is useful for inverse algorithms.