The central idea behind magnetic resonance imaging is only 33 years old. It was conceived by U.S. chemist Paul Lauterbur, who received the Nobel Prize in medicine last year for his discovery.

A generation ago, high-resolution imaging techniques required microtome samples, wafers of tissue cut from an organism and sliced into ultra-thin sections for examination. Dr. Lauterbur knew that magnetism and radio waves pass easily through organic tissues, and he wondered if he could harness these effects to probe delicate tissues without disturbing them.

While alone at a restaurant one evening, Dr. Lauterbur had an insight. If an organism -- a rat, say -- were bathed in a magnetic field that decreased in power from one side to another and at the same time were inundated in pulsed radio waves, theory predicted that every hydrogen atom in it would become a radio transceiver.

Each hydrogen atom would absorb a radio frequency at one wavelength and re-emit it at another. Intercepted by a sensor and massaged with the proper math, these "resonant wavelengths" could reveal the hydrogen atom's position in real time, creating, in aggregate, an accurate image of the rat's innards.

Every water molecule has two hydrogen atoms. If a rat's body held a hundred sextillion molecules of H{-2}O, it would have at least twice that number of built-in radio antennas to yield an image.

The rat need not even be dead, for the technique that Dr. Lauterbur imagined would peer inside living tissue in situ. It would lay bare a beating heart, a liver tumour or a flexing knee joint without the need for scalpels, needles or anesthetics. The new technique would make tissue as transparent as glass, yet be totally benign. Unlike high-energy X-rays, it would not cause radiation damage, no matter how often it was used.

That was Dr. Lauterbur's original insight in a restaurant in Pennsylvania.

Although the theory proved viable, it was difficult to convert into a workable technology. Dr. Lauterbur took a year to get a single MRI image of a test tube full of water, and another year to obtain a crude image of a clam.

But the technique steadily improved, borrowing controls from other imaging methods and taking analytical algorithms from abstruse divisions of pure mathematics. Dr. Lauterbur's 30-year-old hunch now underpins a series of refined commercial MRI scanners, which last year generated more than 60,000,000 medical images of human bodies worldwide.

You can have more in-depth scientific knowledge on MRI by visiting the MRI page on wikipedia - the free encyclopedia or by continuing to read further on this page:

Magnetic resonance imaging

(Redirected from MRI)

MRI Image

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a method of creating images of the inside of opaque organs in living organisms as well as detecting the amount of bound water in geological structures. It is primarily used to visualise pathological or other physiological alterations of living tissues as well as to estimate the permability of rock to hydrocarbons.

First, the spins of the atomic nuclei of the tissue molecules are aligned in a powerful magnetic field. Then, radio frequency pulses are applied in a plane perpendicular to the magnetic field lines so as to cause some of the hydrogen nuclei to change alignment. After this, the radio frequency is turned off and the nuclei go back to their original configuration but, as they do so, they release radio frequency energy which can be picked up by coils wrapped around the patient. These signals are recorded and the resulting data are processed by a computer to generate an image of the tissue. Thus, the examined tissue can be seen with its quite detailed anatomical features. In clinical practice, MRI is used to distinguish pathologic tissue such as a brain tumor from normal tissue.

The technique most frequently relies on the relaxation properties of magnetically-excited hydrogen nuclei in water. The sample is briefly exposed to a burst of radiofrequency energy, which in the presence of a magnetic field, puts the nuclei in an elevated energy state. As the molecules undergo their normal, microscopic tumbling, they shed this energy to their surroundings, in a process referred to as "relaxation." Molecules free to tumble more rapidly relax more rapidly. Differences in relaxation rates are the basis of MRI images--for example, the water molecules in blood are free to tumble more rapidly, and hence, relax at a different rate than water molecules in other tissues. A contrast agent is sometimes injected in the sample to augment these differences and improve sensitivity.

Though the behavior of atomic nuclei in the sample is central to the technique, the term "nuclear" was dropped from the technique's name to avoid an irrational avoidance of the technique in the face of worries or concerns born from the association of the word "nuclear" with the technologies used in nuclear weapons and the risks of radioactive materials. Unlike nuclear weapon technology, the nuclei relevant to MRI exist and are in place whether the technique is applied or not.

One of the advantages of an MRI scan is that, according to current medical knowledge, it is harmless to the patient. It only utilizes strong magnetic fields and non-ionizing radiation in the radio frequency range. Compare this to CT scans and traditional X-rays which involve doses of ionizing radiation. It must be noted, however, that the presence of a ferromagnetic foreign body (say, shell fragments) in the patient, or a metallic implant (like surgical prostheses, or pacemakers) can present a (relative or absolute) contraindication towards MRI scanning: interaction of the magnetic and radiofrequency fields with such an object can lead to mechanical or thermal injury, or failure of an implanted device.

Another advantage of MRI is that the contrast resolution of soft tissues is much better than in CT, leading to higher-quality images, especially in brain and spinal cord scans. The spatial resolution achieved per second of scanning time, however, is better in CT, giving this modality the advantage in assessing, e.g., bony abnormalities.

Reflecting the fundamental importance and applicability of MRI in the medical field, Paul Lauterbur and Sir Peter Mansfield were awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discoveries concerning MRI.

Specialised MRI scans

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) is a technique which combines the spatially-addressable nature of MRI with the spectroscopically-rich information obtainable from nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). That is to say, MRI allows one to study a particular region within an organism or sample, but gives relatively little information about the chemical or physical nature of that region--its chief value is in being able to distinguish the properties of that region relative to those of surrounding regions. MR spectroscopy, however, provides a wealth of chemical information about that region, as would an NMR spectrum of that region.

Functional MRI

Functional MRI (fMRI) measures signal changes in the brain that are due to changing neural activity. The brain is scanned at low resolution but at a rapid rate (typically once every 2-3 seconds). Increases in neural activity cause changes in the MR signal via a mechanism called the BOLD (blood oxygen level-dependent) effect. Increased neural activity causes an increased demand for oxygen, and the vascular system actually overcompensates for this, greatly increasing the amount of oxygenated hemoglobin relative to deoxygenated hemoglobin. Since deoxygenated hemoglobin reduces MR signal, the vascular response leads to a signal increase that is related to the neural activity. The precise nature of the relationship between neural activity and the BOLD signal is a subject of current research.

Diffusion MRI

Diffusion MRI measures the diffusion of water molecules in biological tissues. In an isotropic medium (inside a glass of water for example) water molecules naturally move according to Brownian motion. In biological tissues however the diffusion is very often anisotropic. For example a molecule inside the axon of a neuron has a low probability to cross a myelin membrane. Therefore the molecule will move principally along the axis of the neural fiber. Conversely if we know that molecules locally diffuse principally in one direction we can make the assumption that this corresponds to a set of fibers. Diffusion MRI is a tool for scientists (and medical doctors) to study connections in the brain. Diffusion MRI is still at the research stage. The problem of finding a fiber from a Diffusion MRI image is called tractography.

Interventional MRI