Beamforming techniques have played a prominent role in source imaging in neuroimaging and in locating epileptogenic zones. However, existing vector-beamformers are sensitive to noise on localization of epileptogenic zones. In this study, partial least square (PLS) was used to aid the minimum variance beamforming approach for source imaging with magnetoencephalography (MEG) arrays, and verified its effectiveness in simulated data and epilepsy data. First, PLS was employed to extract the components of the MEG arrays by maximizing the covariance between a linear combination of the predictors and the class variable. Noise was then removed by reconstructing the MEG arrays based on those components. The minimum variance beamforming method was used to estimate a source model. Simulations with a realistic head model and varying noise levels indicated that the proposed approach can provide higher spatial accuracy than other well-known beamforming methods. For real MEG recordings in 10 patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, the ratios of the number of spikes localized in the surgical excised region to the total number of spikes using the proposed method were higher than that of the dipole fitting method. These localization results using the proposed method are more consistent with the clinical evaluation. The proposed method may provide a new imaging marker for localization of epileptogenic zones.
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