Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), Cardiff, UK
J Psychopharmacol. 2014 Sep;28(9):815-29. doi: 10.1177/0269881114536790. Epub 2014 Jun 11.
Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is a neuroimaging technique that allows direct measurement of the magnetic fields generated by synchronised ionic neural currents in the brain with moderately good spatial resolution and high temporal resolution. Because chemical neuromodulation can cause changes in neuronal processing on the millisecond time-scale, the combination of MEG with pharmacological interventions (pharmaco-MEG) is a powerful tool for measuring the effects of experimental modulations of neurotransmission in the living human brain. Importantly, pharmaco-MEG can be used in both healthy humans to understand normal brain function and in patients to understand brain pathologies and drug-treatment effects. In this paper, the physiological and technical basis of pharmaco-MEG is introduced and contrasted with other pharmacological neuroimaging techniques. Ongoing developments in MEG analysis techniques such as source-localisation, functional and effective connectivity analyses, which have allowed for more powerful inferences to be made with recent pharmaco-MEG data, are described. Studies which have utilised pharmaco-MEG across a range of neurotransmitter systems (GABA, glutamate, acetylcholine, dopamine and serotonin) are reviewed.
脑磁图（MEG）是一种神经影像学技术，可通过适度高的空间分辨率和高时间分辨率，直接测量大脑中同步离子神经电流产生的磁场。由于化学神经调制可以在毫秒时间尺度上引起神经元处理的变化，因此将 MEG 与药物干预（药物-MEG）相结合是测量活人脑内神经递质传递实验调制影响的强大工具。重要的是，药物-MEG 既可以在健康人中用于了解正常大脑功能，也可以在患者中用于了解大脑病理和药物治疗效果。本文介绍了药物-MEG 的生理和技术基础，并与其他药物神经影像学技术进行了对比。还描述了 MEG 分析技术的最新进展，如源定位、功能和有效连接分析，这些进展使得可以根据最近的药物-MEG 数据做出更有力的推断。本文还回顾了一系列神经递质系统（GABA、谷氨酸、乙酰胆碱、多巴胺和 5-羟色胺）的药物-MEG 研究。
