Impedance changes recorded with scalp electrodes during visual evoked responses: Implications for Electrical Impedance Tomography of fast neural activity

Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) is a recently developed medical imaging method which could enable fast neural imaging in the brain by recording the resistance changes which occur as ion channels open during neuronal depolarization. In published studies in animal models with intracranial electrodes, changes of 0.005 to 3% have been reported but the amplitude of changes in the human is not known. The purpose of this work was to determine if resistance changes could be recorded non-invasively in humans during evoked activity which could form the basis for EIT of fast neural activity. Resistance was recorded with scalp electrodes during 2 Hz pattern visual evoked responses over 10 min using an insensible 1 Hz square wave constant current of 0.1-1 mA. Significant resistance decreases of 0.0010 ± 0.0005% (0.30 ± 0.15 μV, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 2:1, n = 16 recordings over 6 subjects) (mean ± SE) were recorded. These are in broad agreement with modelling which estimated changes of 0.0039 ± 0.0034% (1.03 ± 0.75 μV) using an anatomically realistic finite element model. This is the first demonstration of such changes in humans and so encourages the belief that EIT could be used for neural imaging. Unfortunately, the signal-to-noise ratio was not sufficient to permit imaging at present because recording over multiple injection sites needed for imaging would require impractically long recording times. However, in the future, invasive imaging with intracranial electrodes in animal models or humans and improved signal processing or recording may still enable imaging; this would constitute a significant advance in neuroscience technology.