The influence of skull-conductivity misspecification on inverse source localization in realistically shaped finite element head models

Abstract

The electric conductivities of different tissues are important parameters of the head model and their precise knowledge appears to be a prerequisite for the localization of electric sources within the brain. To estimate the error in source localization due to errors in assumed conductivity values, parameter variations on skull conductivities are examined. The skull conductivity was varied in a wide range and, in a second part of this paper, the effect of a nonhomogeneous skull conductivity was examined. An error in conductivity of lower than 20% appears to be acceptable for fine finite element head models with average discretization errors down to 3 mm. Nonhomogeneous skull conductivities, e.g., sutures, yield important mislocalizations especially in the vincinty of electrodes and should be modeled.