The Center for Neuromagnetism at the Department of Physiology and Neuroscience, New York University School of Medicine performs noninvasive functional brain imaging using magnetoencephalography (MEG), a technique which measures magnetic fields produced by brain activity with uniquely-high spatial and temporal resolution. Our activities encompass both basic and clinical research.

We are interested in examining the spatial and temporal underpinnings of brain function during cognitive processes in different functional states. We have shown that gamma-band spontaneous activity is continuously generated by the CNS, and is modified by sensory stimuli, depending on the functional state (Llinás and Ribary, 1993). Furthermore, we have reported that these coherent patterns of activity serve as an underlying substrate for early sensory processing (Joliot, Ribary and Llinas, 1994), and that an alteration of these coherent patterns correlates with altered perception, such as in dyslexia. We continue to study the underlying neurophysiology of auditory, tactile and visual integration into the ongoing cognitive activity and its alterations in brain pathology.