MRI

Some software changes lives. MRI software saves lives.

MRI is part of a long line of non-invasive imaging tools, beginning with X-rays in 1895. But unlike X-rays or CT scans, MRI doesn’t expose patients to ionizing radiation and reveals different body structures. This lets doctors decide safely how to treat patients, reducing unnecessary procedures, unnecessary side effects…and unnecessary costs.

A blood clot in the brain landed Fred S. in the emergency room. Five hours had passed, outside the usual window for using clot-dissolving drugs. Yet an MRI showed that the drugs might still work.

Fred was soon discharged —and his life saved—thanks to treatment that would not have been performed without the MRI.

Is more information always better?

MRI has transformed medicine, letting doctors look inside us before picking up a scalpel, prescribing drugs, planning treatment, and following-up.

But MRI also spots harmless abnormalities that might never cause problems, leading to tests and treatments that can be costly or dangerous—and unnecessary.

MRI machines use a magnetic field, radio waves, and a computer to detect the properties of living tissue. All body parts have water (and thus hydrogen).

An MRI machine creates a magnetic field around your body, causing your hydrogen atoms, which are partially magnetic, to align with the field. When radio waves are applied quickly, they excite these atoms, causing them to emit a unique electronic signal that sensors record—and which MRI software uses to create an image.

We think of MRI “machines” as hardware. Yet much of their power lies in their software, which controls the magnetic and radio-frequency pulses, collects and interprets the resulting signals, and then transforms this data into images.

Depending on the MRI settings, images can highlight fat, water fluid, air, bone, or soft tissues in the patient.

Software is a valuable tool throughout the MRI process. During your MRI, technicians use software to select imaging parameters and administer pulse sequences. After your MRI, software is used to process your images so that doctors can interpret them.

Software systems also archive and display MRI images, allowing doctors to consult with and connect patients to far-flung medical specialists when needed.

MRI evolved over decades, beginning in 1937 with Isidor Rabi’s discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR).

Knowing that an atom’s protons and neutrons act as small, spinning magnets, Rabi exposed different compounds to a large magnetic field and powerful radio waves. Each gave off a unique signal—a magnetic signature.

A decade later, Felix Bloch and Edward Purcell built on Rabi’s work, independently demonstrating NMR in liquids and solids.

Collecting molecular data was the first step in developing MRI. But how to transform this data into pictures?

In the 1970s, Paul Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield independently suggested applying precise variations in a second, “gradient,” magnetic field to pinpoint resonating molecules. Using this information, MRI software assembles a 2- or 3-dimensional image of internal body structures.