Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to form pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes of the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and radio waves to generate images of the organs in the body. MRI does not involve X-rays or the use of ionizing radiation, which distinguishes it from CT and PET scans. MRI is a medical application of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) which can also be used for imaging in other NMR applications, such as NMR spectroscopy.
Medical imaging is the technique and process of imaging the interior of a body for clinical analysis and medical intervention, as well as visual representation of the function of some organs or tissues (physiology). Medical imaging seeks to reveal internal structures hidden by the skin and bones, as well as to diagnose and treat disease. Medical imaging also establishes a database of normal anatomy and physiology to make it possible to identify abnormalities. Although imaging of removed organs and tissues can be performed for medical reasons, such procedures are usually considered part of pathology instead of medical imaging.
Sir Peter Mansfield was an English physicist who was awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, shared with Paul Lauterbur, for discoveries concerning Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Mansfield was a professor at the University of Nottingham.
Raymond Vahan Damadian was an American physician, medical practitioner, and inventor of an NMR scanning machine.
Neuroimaging is the use of quantitative (computational) techniques to study the structure and function of the central nervous system, developed as an objective way of scientifically studying the healthy human brain in a non-invasive manner. Increasingly it is also being used for quantitative studies of brain disease and psychiatric illness. Neuroimaging is a highly multidisciplinary research field and is not a medical specialty.
Magnetic resonance microscopy is magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at a microscopic level down to the scale of microns. The first definition of MRM was MRI having voxel resolutions of better than 100 μm.
Seiji Ogawa is a Japanese biophysicist and neuroscientist known for discovering the technique that underlies Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). He is regarded as the father of modern functional brain imaging. He determined that the changes in blood oxygen levels cause its magnetic resonance imaging properties to change, allowing a map of blood, and hence, functional, activity in the brain to be created. This map reflected which neurons of the brain responded with electrochemical signals to mental processes. He was the first scientist who demonstrated that the functional brain imaging is dependent on the oxygenation status of the blood, the BOLD effect. The technique was therefore called blood oxygenation level-dependent or BOLD contrast. Functional MRI (fMRI) has been used to map the visual, auditory, and sensory regions and moving toward higher brain functions such as cognitive functions in the brain.
A medical procedure is a course of action intended to achieve a result in the delivery of healthcare.
John Rowland Mallard OBE FRSE FREng was an English physicist and professor of Medical Physics at the University of Aberdeen from 1965 until his retirement in 1992. He was known for setting up and leading the team that developed the first magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) full body scanner and, in particular, positron emission tomography (PET). He was born in Kingsthorpe, Northampton, England.
Magnetic resonance neurography (MRN) is the direct imaging of nerves in the body by optimizing selectivity for unique MRI water properties of nerves. It is a modification of magnetic resonance imaging. This technique yields a detailed image of a nerve from the resonance signal that arises from in the nerve itself rather than from surrounding tissues or from fat in the nerve lining. Because of the intraneural source of the image signal, the image provides a medically useful set of information about the internal state of the nerve such as the presence of irritation, nerve swelling (edema), compression, pinch or injury. Standard magnetic resonance images can show the outline of some nerves in portions of their courses but do not show the intrinsic signal from nerve water. Magnetic resonance neurography is used to evaluate major nerve compressions such as those affecting the sciatic nerve (e.g. piriformis syndrome), the brachial plexus nerves (e.g. thoracic outlet syndrome), the pudendal nerve, or virtually any named nerve in the body. A related technique for imaging neural tracts in the brain and spinal cord is called magnetic resonance tractography or diffusion tensor imaging.
Magnetic resonance can mean:
Positron emission tomography–magnetic resonance imaging (PET–MRI) is a hybrid imaging technology that incorporates magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) soft tissue morphological imaging and positron emission tomography (PET) functional imaging.
Magnetic resonance imaging of the brain uses magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to produce high quality two-dimensional or three-dimensional images of the brain and brainstem as well as the cerebellum without the use of ionizing radiation (X-rays) or radioactive tracers.
Ian Robert Young was a British medical physicist, known for his work in the field of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Jürgen Klaus Hennig is a German chemist and medical physicist. Internationally he is considered to be one of the pioneers of Magnetic Resonance Imaging for clinical diagnostics. He is the Scientific Director of the Department of Diagnostic Radiology and Chairman of the Magnetic Resonance Development and Application Center (MRDAC) at the University Medical Center Freiburg. In the year 2003 he was awarded the Max Planck Research Award in the category of Biosciences and Medicine.
Raad Hashem Mohiaddin is professor of cardiovascular imaging at the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College, London, and Royal Brompton Hospital. He is twice winner of the William S. Moore award of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine the society's highest honor for medical investigators.
Synthetic MRI is a simulation method in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), for generating contrast weighted images based on measurement of tissue properties. The synthetic (simulated) images are generated after an MR study, from parametric maps of tissue properties. It is thereby possible to generate several contrast weightings from the same acquisition. This is different from conventional MRI, where the signal acquired from the tissue is used to generate an image directly, often generating only one contrast weighting per acquisition. The synthetic images are similar in appearance to those normally acquired with an MRI scanner.
Leslie Ying is an American biomedical engineering scientist in the field of medical imaging. She is the Clifford C. Furnas Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Electrical Engineering at University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. Ying is the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging and is also an American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) Fellow.
Brian Worthington was the first radiologist to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and is acknowledged as a pioneer in clinical magnetic resonance imaging. He was born in Oldham, England and was educated at Hulme Grammar School, training at Guy's Hospital after graduating in physiology and medicine. After graduation his career developed rapidly, particularly in the field of MRI research and he was subsequently admitted as a Fellow of the Royal College of Radiologists.
Daniel Kevin Sodickson is an American physicist and an expert in the field of biomedical imaging. A past president and gold medalist of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, he is credited with foundational work in parallel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), in which distributed arrays of detectors are used to gather magnetic resonance images at previously inaccessible speeds. Sodickson is an elected Fellow of the US National Academy of Inventors. He currently serves as Vice-Chair for Research in the Department of Radiology at New York University (NYU) Grossman School of Medicine, as Director of the department's Bernard and Irene Schwartz Center for Biomedical Imaging, as Principal Investigator of the Center for Advanced Imaging Innovation and Research, and as Co-Director of NYU's Tech4Health Institute.
