Abstract
The scientific evidence of magnetoencephalography (MEG) is not necessarily clear except for a diagnosis of epilepsy. In this study, we reviewed clinical MEG studies regarding neurological diseases or neurorehabilitation based on a website bibliographic survey. We searched MEG papers on neurological diseases or neurorehabilitation before November 2011 using MEDLINE by keywords: (a representative diagnosis such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS) AND (MEG OR magnetoencephalography). Among many papers retrieved, we further narrowed the search to 27 papers based on levels of evidence and abstract contents; as to neurological diseases, 3 papers on ALS, 8 papers on Parkinson disease and 4 papers on multiple sclerosis were reviewed: and as to neurorehabilitation, 9 papers on recovery from sensorimotor deficits and 3 papers on recovery from aphasia due to an ischemic stroke. The levels of evidence were classified as grade 1: no paper, 2: 18 papers, 3: 3 papers, 4: 6 papers, 5: no paper, 6: no paper, respectively. Most studies were confined to small number of patients. However, MEG has an advantage of detecting spontaneous activity in a small brain region and providing functional network activity between multiple brain areas or coherent activity between deep brain nuclei and distinct cortical areas. Therefore, the MEG tells us functional changes in a certain disease or a recovery phase from an ischemic stroke, and gives a novel insight into disease-specific pathophysiology such as Parkinson disease.
