Assessing Functional Brain Development in the Uterus with Fetal Magnetoencephalography

Functional brain development is a process starting shortly after fertilization and continues throughout the whole human life span. Especially in the fetal period, the evaluation of brain development involves methodological difficulties due to the inaccessibility of the fetal head. Fetal Magnetoencephalography (fMEG) is a non-invasive technique which enables a direct measurement of fetal neuronal activity, and, due to its high temporal resolution, is especially suitable to evaluate its time course. This makes it an important technique to better understand normal and abnormal fetal development.