Pii: S1388-2457(99)00174-1

MEG forward problem has been solved for about 2000 dipoles placed on the brain surface using a very ®ne 3-layer realistic model of the head and the boundary element method (BEM). For each dipole, spherical models, one-layer realistic BEM models and coarser 3-layer realistic BEM models, were used to reconstruct the dipole. It was found that the localization bias induced by using a spherical model of the head increased from 2.5 mm in the upper part of the head to 12 mm in the lower part, on average. It was also found that, for the same computing time, a 3-layer model of the head gave on average 2 mm better localization errors than a one-layer model of the head. Orientation errors of less than 208 could only be retrieved with a 3-layer realistic model. Localization and orientation errors highly depended on the dipole position in the brain. q 1999 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.