Technological Advancement in Radiologic and Imaging Sciences: A History of MRI

Technological Advancement in Radiologic and Imaging Sciences: A History of MRI
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Introduction
The magnetic resonance scan (MRI) is a type of radiology technique that employs radio waves, magnetic waves together with a computer in order to develop images of structures of the body, especially the internal body parts. The scanner used to perform the magnetic resonance scanning is called the MRI scanner; it is a tube that is bounded by a huge spherical magnet. A patient lies on a moveable bed that is driven into the giant spherical magnet; the magnet then creates a magnetic field strong enough to align protons of hydrogen atoms which are predisposed to a beam of radio waves and as a result the several protons of the body are spun around as they produce a signal that is faint but enough to be detected by the MRI scanner receiver. This is where the computer picks up the information and processes it into an image that is then relayed onto the screen (Peeters et al., 1996).
The MRI scanner has come a long way and below we shall look at the watershed moments of the technique.
1969: Original Concept
Raymond V. Damadian, later to be credited as the inventor of the MRI scanner, conceived and purposed the MR scanner that would scan the body, for the first time in history. It is during Dr. Damadian`s research into sodium and potassium in living cells that led him to propose the scanner while performing experiments with nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) according to Macchia et al. (2007).
1970: MR Scanner made Possible through Key Discovery
T1/T2 differences between normal and cancer are identified by Dr. Damadian while he was seeking a magnetic response signal difference on cancer which was already termed as an important disease and this further proved, for his critics, that MR technique was a subject worth building and marshalling support for after all.
1971, March: Major Article on MR is published
Science ...