EEG-fMRI (short for EEG-correlated fMRI or electroencephalography-correlated functional magnetic resonance imaging) is a multimodal neuroimaging technique whereby EEG and fMRI data are recorded synchronously for the study of electrical brain activity in correlation with haemodynamic changes in brain during the electrical activity, be it normal function or associated with disorders.
[2] An addition to EEG-fMRI set up is the simultaneous and synchronized video recording without affecting the EEG and fMRI data quality.
[3] For the most part, the acquisition of concurrent EEG-fMRI data is now treated as a solved problem, and commercial devices are available from major manufacturers (e.g., Electrical Geodesics, Inc.; NeuroScan/Compumedics, Inc.; Brain Products; Advanced Neuro Technology), but issues remain.
However, more recent methods use low-rank sparse decomposition (LRSD) which automatically identifies noise components and results in a more thorough "scrubbing" of the BCG noise [4] In principle, the technique combines the EEG’s well documented ability to characterise certain brain states with high temporal resolution and to reveal pathological patterns, with fMRI’s (more recently discovered and less well understood) ability to image blood dynamics through the entire brain with high spatial resolution.
The clinical value of these findings is the subject of ongoing investigations, but recent researches suggest an acceptable reliability for EEG-fMRI studies and better sensitivity in higher field scanner.