Noninvasive localization of brain activity remains a fundamental challenge in neuroscience and clinical medicine. Magnetoencephalography source imaging (MSI) offers high spatiotemporal resolution but is constrained by its reliance on magnetically shielded environments. We propose a source-imaging approach using self-developed scalar optically pumped magnetometers that can operate under Earth’s ambient magnetic field without shielding. Through numerical simulations, we systematically assess how geomagnetic fields—particularly field orientation and gradients—impact localization accuracy, and compare these results with conventional shielded MSI. Our findings demonstrate that, under optimized conditions, the proposed method achieves comparable localization accuracy to traditional systems, which are performed in shielded environments. We also explore the potential advantages of unshielded MSI in enhancing spatial resolution. This work provides a theoretical basis for unshielded MSI and opens avenues for practical quantum sensing technologies in neuroscience and clinical applications.

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• Inverse problems
• Magnetometry
• Optical pumping
• Quantum sensing
• Zeeman effect
• Brain
• Medical imaging
• Neuronal imaging