This handbook is the result of the collective effort by a number of members of the recently formed International Society for the Advancement of Clinical Magnetoencephalography (ISACM). The book has two purposes: to articulate the empirical knowledge gained during the last two decades in the diagnostic use of magnetoencephalography (MEG) and magnetic source imaging (MSI), and to serve in the clinical training of new users.

As the knowledge of the clinical uses of MEG/MSI is at present rather limited and in some aspects uncertain, we hope and expect that this small volume will be augmented and some of its contents will be updated in the future. We therefore offer this handbook not as a definite authoritative reference volume, but as a blueprint of work in progress in an ever-expanding area of clinical sciences.

On behalf of all the co-authors I wish to thank Richard Marley and Katie James of Cambridge University Press for their patience and their support in producing this volume. I also wish to thank Drs. Wenbo Zhang and Stephan Moratti for their comments, and 4-D Neuroimaging for their material support. In particular, I wish to recognize here the following people associated with 4-D Neuroimaging: Dr. Kenneth Squires for his substantive comments, Carol Squires for her careful editing of the entire manuscript, and Jennifer Pecina for her help with the illustrations. Finally, I would like to thank Vanessa Fuller who, once again, lent me her unequalled skills in turning heaps of handwritten material into a cohesive text.