Functional imaging with low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (LORETA): a review.

TLDR

LORETA evolved from raw electric activity localization in the mid‑1990s to statistical parametric mapping and quantitative neuroanatomy by 1999, establishing a foundation for functional brain imaging. The paper reviews recent studies demonstrating successful applications of LORETA. The review discusses LORETA’s electrophysiological and neuroanatomical foundations, its localization accuracy, validation in human experiments, and addresses criticisms. These advances position LORETA as comparable to PET and fMRI in functional imaging performance.

Abstract

This paper reviews several recent publications that have successfully used the functional brain imaging method known as LORETA. Emphasis is placed on the electrophysiological and neuroanatomical basis of the method, on the localization properties of the method, and on the validation of the method in real experimental human data. Papers that criticize LORETA are briefly discussed. LORETA publications in the 1994-1997 period based localization inference on images of raw electric neuronal activity. In 1998, a series of papers appeared that based localization inference on the statistical parametric mapping methodology applied to high-time resolution LORETA images. Starting in 1999, quantitative neuroanatomy was added to the methodology, based on the digitized Talairach atlas provided by the Brain Imaging Centre, Montreal Neurological Institute. The combination of these methodological developments has placed LORETA at a level that compares favorably to the more classical functional imaging methods, such as PET and fMRI.