Patent Document ID: 7769424
Application ID: 10500369
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A computer-implemented brain current source estimating method for estimating, based on an electromagnetic field observed outside a scalp, a position of a current source as a source of said electromagnetic field existing in a brain, comprising the steps of receiving measurements of an observed electromagnetic field observed outside a scalp; setting, in a computer simulation of the brain, a plurality of computer simulated curved surfaces having depths from brain surface different from each other and shapes not intersecting with each other, and setting lattice points on each of said computer simulated curved surfaces; automatically estimating, on each of said computer simulated curved surfaces, a current distribution for recovering said observed electromagnetic field, wherein said step of automatically estimating a current distribution includes a step of setting, when said current distribution is estimated in accordance with variational Bayesian estimation, a hierarchical prior distribution representing a localized condition of said current source in said variational Bayesian estimation; based on an expansion of the current distribution estimated on each one of said computer simulated curved surfaces and a difference between an electromagnetic field recovered based on said current distribution and said observed electromagnetic field, identifying one computer simulated curved surface among said plurality of computer simulated curved surfaces as a true curved surface on which said current source exists, so that said expansion and said difference attain relative minimums at said identified computer simulated curved surface; and outputting a position corresponding to said identified computer simulated curved surface as the position of said current source, wherein the above steps are performed by one or more computers programmed to perform the above steps.