Instrument and Staff Availability
The MEG instrument is available 7 days a week / 24 hours a day to investigators with MEG-operator certification (see Training).
The MEG staff is available to assist investigators for MEG measurements or obtaining certification. Regular hours are Monday to Friday, 9:00 -17:00.
System maintenance imposes interruptions of MEG measurements for one hour once or twice a week, usually at the end of the day, Wednesdays and Fridays. The MEG staff will accommodate booking on these days to the best of their ability.
Booking requests are placed online by investigators through the McGill Faculty of Medicine core services schedule (see Booking Procedure below).
Definition of an MEG Session: When booking online, investigators need to specify the amount of time needed for each session and will be billed accordingly. An MEG session is defined as the time necessary for MEG data acquisition in the instrument and the duration for subject preparation, and any additional time required to leave the suite ready for the next user. The time necessary for subject preparation varies from a minimum of 15 minutes for a MEG-only acquisition to an hour when EEG needs to be acquired simultaneously with MEG. The recording time depends on the protocol and will vary by study. There is no restriction in the number of subjects within a session. If additional time is used, it will be billed (see Billing).
Booking Procedure
All requests for measurement times must be submitted using the reservation schedule. Each new study and user must first be set up in the system; see Requesting access for a new study, step 5.
- Review the calendar to find an appropriate free time
- Request a reservation
Participant ID: Please fill in the subject code for all MEG bookings, as proof that there is a confirmed participant. Reserving time slots without a confirmed participant is not allowed.
Time requested: You must book the entire time required for your study (setup + recording). This is typically 3 hours for a pilot study or when using the EEG cap, and 2 hours for most standard subject recordings. The duration of the session billed to the researcher includes the subject preparation time and measurement time. Billing starts with the booking time even for late arrivals. - Reserved time will be approved within 24 hours of the request. It is the responsibility of the researcher to verify that his/her session block has been correctly granted.
MEG Data Collection and Retrieval
Raw data is collected and stored on the acquisition workstation (quickly.bic.mni.mcgill.ca). Typical disk space usage are about 10 GB per hour of recording. The raw data is then transferred overnight to the MEG data storage (/meg/meg1/data/) and made available to their respective investigator on the BIC network for at least a month following the session date. Data is automatically deleted each month. It is therefore the sole responsibility of the investigator to retrieve his/her data in a timely manner.
For investigators who have access to the BIC data storage, raw MEG data can be copied directly to that storage space. Arrangements must be made directly with the MEG system manager. For information regarding access and billing rates for BIC data storage, see https://mcgill.ca/bic/core-facilities/computing-data-storage.
Session Cancellation
In the event that a booked session needs to be cancelled, this can be done directly on the schedule by the investigator up to 5 working days before a session. For late cancellations (under 5 working days before the session), the session will be billed at the normal rate.
For the MEG-infinity plan, after 3 late cancellations, an additional penalty fee of $250 will be charged for all further late cancellations.
Every effort will be made to avoid changes in the MEG schedule but occasional staffing shortages, equipment failure or other unforeseen issue may require that a confirmed session be rescheduled. The researcher will be notified as soon as possible and every effort will be made to reschedule the session shortly thereafter, with no penalty charge.
