Join us for the final QUBIC seminar of 2025 where Sophie Lin will discuss new opportunities for investigating cerebellar mechanisms in learning, cognition, and neurological disease.

Quantum Sensors for the “Little Brain”: Enabling Cerebellar MEG with OPM Technology

Speaker: Sophie Lin
Date: Wednesday 05 November, 1pm – 2pm AEST
Zoom: Click here to join the seminar

Abstract:
The human cerebellum is smaller in volume than the cerebrum but contains over 70% of the brain’s neurons. Connected to many cortical regions, including the prefrontal cortex, it supports not only motor control but also cognitive and social functions. Despite this, studies of human cerebellar function using non-invasive electrophysiology have been limited, partly due to the misconception that it is inaccessible to magnetoencephalography (MEG) or EEG. In this study, likely the first such attempt, we used wearable optically pumped magnetometer-based magnetoencephalography (OP-MEG) to record cerebellar activity during eyeblink classical conditioning in healthy adults. OP-MEG reliably detected cerebellar responses to brief air-puff stimuli (unconditioned stimulus, US), which diminished over the course of conditioning – mirroring Purkinje cell activity changes reported in animal models. Additional cerebellar responses were observed just prior to the peak of the conditioned blink. Source localisation consistently placed these responses within the cerebellum. These results establish OP-MEG as a robust, non-invasive method for measuring human cerebellar electrophysiology. By aligning human recordings with invasive findings from animal studies, this approach opens new opportunities for investigating cerebellar mechanisms in learning, cognition, and neurological disease.

Bio:
Sophie’s research focuses on non-invasive brain imaging, particularly using optically pumped magnetometer-based magnetoencephalography (OP-MEG), to investigate cerebellar function in human learning and cognition. She has contributed to developing OP-MEG as a method for recording cerebellar activity in humans and played a key role in establishing Australia’s first whole-head OP-MEG system at the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne, which she currently manages. Her work, conducted under the mentorship of Prof Marta Garrido, also explores predictive processing in both the cerebrum and cerebellum, as well as neural mechanisms underlying neurological conditions such as multiple sclerosis, aiming to inform treatments like brain-computer interfaces.