The aim of the Concerted Action was to advance Biomagnetism in Europe and to maintain the lead that Europe had in this field. Biomagnetism is one of the fields where Europe played and continues to play a leading role. This is partly due to concentrated national research efforts. Biomagnetism enjoys National Research Project status in Italy, Germany and Finland and large scale state-of-the-art facilities exist in a number of locations in these countries.

The full development of biomagnetism as a diagnostic tool is a major task requiring the cooperation of scientists of several disciplines (e.g., cardiologists, neuro-electrophysiologists, mathematicians, engineers and physicists). The high-tech equipment such as multichannel magnetometer systems, computers for imaging techniques, dataprocessing, and the reconstruction of the sources necessitate substantial financial inputs and staff. Hence, each of the European biomagnetism groups can only deal with a few aspects of the subject. Pooling of knowledge, sharing of tasks, standardisation, testing of instruments, comparison and evaluation of methods and results as well as education of scientists were the aims of the concerted action expressed at a general level.

Especially the pooling of knowledge has been succesfully started within the concerted action. The training of scientists was carried out within the framework of COMETT II and the construction of a database on multiple sclerosis and focal epilepsy plus a database with electrophysiological a-priori information will be started within AIM.

The concerted action led to the following publications: The first two Biomagnetism Supplements to Clinical Physics and Physiological Measurements were published in 1991 and a third will follow in 1992 as will a book on epilepsy. A special issue of the International Journal on Cardiac Imaging was devoted to Biomagnetic Imaging for ablation of cardiac arrhythmias. A bulletin is sent twice a year to more than 1300 addresses of scientists who expressed their interest. Several inspiring workshops have been held, some are videotaped. A practical PC course on the Boundary Element Method was given and all the participants have taken the programmes home. A data base for literature is completed (i.e., it is up-to-data). Cooperative research has been carried out. Individual grants have been supplied to enable this. Computer programs have been distributed. It was agreed that full standardization would be premature, because it would stifle initiative. A common data format and programs to convert these data formats will be available in the nearest future. Experts in Biomagnetism have given talks as invited speakers at important medical conferences and the costs were paid for by the CA. A formal standpoint was formulated at a meeting of experts regarding the source localization accuracy of EEG and MEG; this standpoint is published in the Journal Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 82, 1992, Editorial: A consensus on reletive merits of EEG and MEG, pp. 317-319. An E-mail based computer network is established and is used for communication between all groups. A COMETT II and an AIM programme are supported by the EC. In short, a network on biomagnetism has been established in Europe. E8ach biomagnetic centre within EC and cost countries was a participant. All European industries which have heavily invested in the development of biomagnetic equipment (i.e.,- Siemens, Philips, Dornier, BTI) were actively participating in our concerted action. The cooperation with industry is appreciated, for example several experts from outside Europe have been invited to our workshops by the industrial partners to share their knowledge with our members.