MEG Freeware Packages

There are many available; here are some (some comments may be ignorant!)

SPM5

Advantages:

• Much experience at CBU, integrated with fMRI analysis
• Matlab, so readable and extendable
• Advanced statistical methods (e.g, for multiple comparisons across space or time),
• Novel variants of the L2-norm approach to the inverse problem
• Group-based analysis (eg in MNI/Talairach space).

Disadvantages:

• Slow graphics
• ECD currently limited

http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm/

Currently installed on all Linux Boxes (lowest load box selected by spm 5 eeg at linux prompt)

For more details, see here SpmAnalysis

MNE (Minimum Norm Estimates)

Advantages:

• Advanced distributed solution methods (mainly by Matti Hämäläinen, a long-standing expert with strong links to Neuromag)
• Excellent, fast graphics

• Linked with Free Surfer (advanced software for MRI segmentation, extraction of cortical surfaces, and inflation/normalisation) http://imaging.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/imaging/FreesurferInformation

Disadvantages:

• Compiled code, so difficult to extend

http://www.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/martinos/userInfo/data/sofMNE.php

Soon to be installed on Linux Boxes

FieldTrip

Advantages:

• Strong in oscillatory analysis (time-frequency, coherence) and beamformers (eg DICS)
• In Matlab, so easily readable and extendable

http://www.ru.nl/fcdonders/fieldtrip/

Yet Others

• EEGLAB (good for ICA) http://www.sccn.ucsd.edu/eeglab/

• Brainstorm (good for forward models) http://neuroimage.usc.edu/brainstorm/

• ...