The method of maximum mutual information for biomedical electromagnetic inverse problems

Abstract

This paper proposes a new method for biomedical electromagnetic inverse problems based on the technique of maximum mutual information. The new method is different from the conventional methods for it will not depend on the widely used regularization technique. The new method provides a general paradigm for developing algorithms dealing with various biomedical inverse problems that can be described using lead field, including localization and imaging of neural source activities in brain and heart from EEG/MEG and ECG/MCG; it is also possible to apply it to other, electromagnetic inverse problems like electrical impedance tomography. This paper mainly provides the theoretical development, with MEG inverse problems as case studies.