Researchers in Ohio and France have solved a longstanding scientific mystery involving magnetic resonance -- the physical phenomenon that allows MRI instruments in modern hospitals to image tissues deep within the human body.
Their discovery, a new mathematical algorithm, should lead to new MRI techniques with more informative and sharper images.
As described in an article posted online today in the Journal of Chemical Physics, a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Institute of Physics (AIP), the work may even help scientists devise ways of using MRI without having to put people inside giant magnets -- an advance that could lead to portable and less costly MRIs.
The new work solves a mystery that has persisted for decades, says Philip Grandinetti, a professor of chemistry at The Ohio State University and one of the coauthors of the article. The solution to this mystery came as a result of their work in trying to optimize magnetic resonance pulse sequences. Specifically, they were looking for better ways of doing something known as an "inversion" in a magnetic resonance measurement.
Bathed in the magnetic field, atomic nuclei within water and other molecules throughout cells and tissues in a person's body will align themselves in the direction of the magnetic field. Inversion is an important process done in MRI scans that realigns the nuclei so they are against the magnetic field. When all is said and done, inverting the nuclei of people inside MRI scanners can reveal such things as cancer tumors, whose slightly different response to the changing field can be used to detect their presence amid surrounding healthy tissue.