First Image Taken With an Ultra Low Field MRI 189
KentuckyFC writes "MRI machines are about to get smaller, much smaller. Most of their bulk is taken up by the huge superconducting magnets required to generate fields of a few Teslas. Now a team at the Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico has built a machine that can produce images using a field of only a few microTesla (PDF, abstract here). So giant superconducting magnets aren't necessary, a development that has the potential to make MRI machines much smaller, perhaps even suitcase-sized. The one-page paper shows sections of the first 3D brain image taken with the device."
Hidden monkeys (Score:4, Informative)
So, for comparison here is a page with images of human heads in a normal MRI [fbi.gov].
(single image here [fbi.gov])
I hope they get the focusing better (which is what I understand the power is used for) because this will be a good progression.
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Article's title is misleading (Score:4, Informative)
Another company, Vista Clara, is using a novel form of ULF MRI to map groundwater.
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Bert
Re:Article's title is misleading (Score:5, Informative)
This isn't an ultra low field MRI, it's a DUAL field MRI. In a normal scanner you have a big, static magnetic field that polarizes the sample and remains for readout. In one of these dual field scanners you use the big field (or a bigger field, it's usually a resistive electromagnet so it can't be anywhere near as strong as a superconductor) to polarize the sample then you shut it off and use a much smaller field for readout. There are a few advantages, the one the abstract focuses on is that you can do things like MEG in a very low field. The other is that energy deposition is related to the field strength so by using a small field you can use imaging sequences that would otherwise pump too much energy into the subject.
One of the guys working on this technology visited my lab last year. It was a very interesting presentation.
I believe someone has produced an MR image using the Earth's magnetic field. They've certainly done nMR in the Earth's field. You can't get much lower than that on this planet.
Re:Article's title is misleading (Score:4, Informative)
Stronger pre-polarizatin field is used (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Stronger pre-polarizatin field is used (Score:4, Informative)
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If that was the reason, they would just pre-polarize to a different field. Most MRI happens in the middle of some radio band, and at ~2 KHz, there is going to be lots of interference from 60/50 Hz harmonics or other mains related EM radiation. The interference is removed by shielding the magnet / room. In this case, I think they also used a gradiometer coil which is pretty
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The one advantage of using the earth's field is that it is reasonably uniform in a clean environment, and the pre-polarizing field doesn't need to be anywhere near as uniform as the readout field. In a not so clean environment, it is possible to us
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MRI accidents (Score:4, Interesting)
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Not that they're common, but still, those things aren't toys.
Thank you for pointing out that MRI's are not toys.
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Interesting... (Score:2)
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Makes me wonder if they'll be able to throw you in an MRI without removing your metallic objects. Or even a Terminator-style MRI-based walk-through security scanner?
That scanner [scifi.com] was from Total Recall [imdb.com]. For better or worse, we're not that far off [geardiary.com].
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She said "I don't want to leave my purse behind. I'll hold it really tight."
The tech said "You can't hold it. It'll tear your arms off."
She said "I'll just set it on a chair next to me."
He said "You can't bring it with you. There's a big magnet in the room and it
other implications (Score:4, Interesting)
Plusses: less (very expensive) liquid helium or (less expensive but still $$) liquid nitrogen. Less of a magnetic field means much higher MRI safety; everything from oxygen cylinders to chairs to guns have been drawn into/against MRIs (the gun was a prison guard who got pushy and DEMANDED to be in the same room as a prisoner. Yeah, the gun went off. No, nobody was hurt.)
Negatives: since the MRI isn't as strong, it might be more affected by local magnetic fields from wiring, ferrous objects, etc. Dunno. Right now, MRIs are installed into big rooms that have as little ferrous material as possible, and then very carefully "shimmed" to adjust for the building and local magnetic fields by a technician. Even if an MRI gets down to "suitcase" size, the necessity of a "clean" environment and calibration for each location might make moving them around very tough.
As a side note, there are already shielded MRI machines which work in a trailer and require little setup time, but being outdoors makes things easier- no building infrastructure to mess with the magnetic fields.
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I was going to make some witty comment about the bullet not going very far, but then again lead isn't paramagnetic, is it?
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I was going to make some witty comment about the bullet not going very far, but then again lead isn't paramagnetic, is it? :)
Nope, though not all bullets are lead.
Jokes aside, the field is very strong and ALWAYS on. The oxygen cylinder incident killed the kid who was in the MRI machine at the time; gooooo White Plains Medical center!
Another benefit I forgot to mention is that the machine won't need to be powered up for very long, nor will it need to be quenched in the event of an emergency (which
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Re:other implications (Score:5, Funny)
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Another similar story, an MRI facility in Arkansas had just been built and the Fire Marshal was on his way to do the final inspection. However, before he got there, the sprinkler contractor decided to take the oxyacetylene torch rig into the room to fix a leaky sprinkler head. The magnet grabbed the tanks, drew them inside, snapped the valve off
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The fringe field for even a large high field magnet doesn't really extend all that far. The 5 Gauss line (go across that and you might get your credit cards erased but it STILL won't make anything fly) is maybe 15 feet from the magnet. It's just far enough that the line goes through the middle of
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And the quench is not always planned...
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In other words the magnet remains stable for a non-predetermined amount of time, which you hope is a long time.
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The doctor told me that a workman had been walking by carrying a window air conditioner at the exact moment the operator was test firing the magnets for the new MRI center they had just built right next door.
That's a cute story, but also shows a complete lack of knowledge of how MRIs work. The magnet is always on. The noise you hear during an MRI is the field switching, physically loading the coil. Anyway, you don't 'fire up' an MRI magnet, you "ramp" it up; they have to be charged slowly, using a spe
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Buy a couple hundered gallons and it'll be much cheaper. In fact, you start getting to the point where it's cheaper to make it youself. Since most hospitals make and store LOX, it shouldn't be too difficult.
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Buy a couple hundered gallons and it'll be much cheaper. In fact, you start getting to the point where it's cheaper to make it youself. Since most hospitals make and store LOX, it shouldn't be too difficult.
If you had the slightest idea what you were talking about, you'd know that liquid oxygen has a higher temperature than liquid nitrogen. This is actually a danger of working with LN; you can end up with oxygen condensing in something you're cooling in LN.
They also consume quite a bit of LOX, so it's
Getting there, but not there yet. Too low-rez (Score:3, Informative)
Very nice. The images are still very blurry (resolution 81×61×11), and the detectors, at 37mm, are big, but it's a start.
I hope they do away with the tunnels (Score:4, Interesting)
They tried to put me in one with the normal little tunnel (about as big around as a five gallon bucket) and I freaked out before I got 2' into it and made them back me out. Then they put me in an "open" MRI machine but it was like being crushed under a car. No way Jose. Abort #2.
So I went to another city where they had a different kind that was a little more "open" than #2.
This one then pumped me full of Xanax and I survived it.
The CT scan was not quite as bad because it was like a large doughnut and there was only about 1' of my body inside it but it still freaked me out.
Xanax on that one too.
I swore I'll die before I ever go in one of those damn things ever again.
They need to come up with a better way. Some people can't handle that crap.
I hope these new ones are a break away from the "trapped in a pipe" or "crushed under a car" machines.
Re:I hope they do away with the tunnels (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course I understand completely that people don't have to justify their phobias, but you have to admit that you must have caused quite a few shaken heads, raised eyebrows, and sighs of exasperation on behalf of the medical staff. Especially considering that because of their scarcity such machines usually have a line of people waiting for them.
Re:I hope they do away with the tunnels (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:I hope they do away with the tunnels (Score:5, Insightful)
I realize that many people find it difficult to understand the lack of control inherent in a phobia. I (with my injection phobia) am often told (by medical professionals) simply to get over it. Unfortunately, when a needle is present, I descend into blind animal panic. My rational mind ceases to function. The thoughts of controlling and pushing through the fear don't even occur to me. It is a pure flight-or-fight response, and I have done both.
Additionally, the guilt of having wasted time (of the doctors or other patients) needlessly adds to the unpleasantness of the situation. His attempts to undergo the procedure are, in my opinion, courageous.
People need help, not guilt or reprimands.
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As far as the claustrophobia goes, MRI is a bad time to find out.
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MRI machines cost several million dollars
http://www.science.org.au/nova/062/062key.htm [science.org.au]
an average MRI machine costs approximately $2 million to buy and install
http://www.phc4.org/reports/fyi/fyi27.htm [phc4.org]
Overall cost of the MRI machine was nearly $1 million
http://www.bellevuehospital.com/new_mri_moves_in.htm [bellevuehospital.com]
Construction costs approximately US$ 1 million per Tesla
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Magnetic_resonance_imaging&oldid=170202436 [wikipedia.org]
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Re:I hope they do away with the tunnels (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not use a cloth eye cover?
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I imagine that wouldn't work - the person with the eye cover on would know that the MRI machine was still out there... waiting to constrict them like an enormous metallic python.
I had an MRI a few years ago. Having to lie unmoving for so long was a bit surreal, and I got into a kind of self-hypnotized state which made the time seem to go faster. I'm not claustrophobic, but one thing that sort of creeped me out was the tiny mirror that was right in front of my eyes. The effect r
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Nice music? (Score:2)
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I haven't seen one in person yet, but there's apparently a company which produces something called the Fonar 360 [fonar.com], which instead of having a tunnel basically turns the entire room is a magnet. This is useful not just for reducing claustrophobia, but also hypothetically allows for surgery to occur while somebody is inside of an MRI. I think the spatial resolution however is quite a bit weaker than typical scanners.
The s
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Yeah, I imagine the low resolution would be ok for certain types of diagnosis, but for a surgery they'd probably want something more detailed.
Even so, it still didn't turn out very well.
I'm really sorry to hear that.
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I agree with you 100%, pair-a-noyd. I'm almost 6' tall and pretty broad across the shoulders. I went to a local hospital for an MRI of my head. I went into the "bore" of the machine headfirst and I had to scrunch up my shoulders so I would fit into the machine. I made it about thirty seconds before I made them pull me out (I had no
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It's a very, very bad thing to experience.
pair-a-noyd, you don't have to apologize to anyone (here or anywhere else) about your experience in the MRI machine. I know exactly how you feel. I had the same problem myself. The bore of the MRI machine was not as big as my shoulders are wide. I was packed-in there pretty tight. I didn't make it very long before I made them pull me out. You are not alone,
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I found myself falling asleep. I think it best to listed to heavy/hard loud fast music instead of the sleepy stuff.
--jeffk++
for reference, Earth's magnetic field is (Score:2, Informative)
according to the Fine Article:
The measurment field in the article is 46 microteslas.
(A "pre-polarization" field of 30 mT (milliteslas) is appled for one second before each meaurement)
Smaller == Cheaper (Score:2, Insightful)
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In home MRI scanner (Score:4, Interesting)
Basically the device would be conveniently rolled over the bed once a month or so and scan. It will utilize advanced 3D image analysis to compare with last couple month's scan and see if you have any growing tumors. If so then you go get a proper scan done.
This will go well with the "in toilet" piss or shit tester that will tell you if you're going diabetic or may be developing some other medical conditions for example like kidney disease or cancer, etc..
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because it will interfear with our tin foil hats of course.
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For ultrasound systems, a far cheaper technology, the cheapest systems seem to be around $10,000. And while I could see the geek appeal of messing around with ultrasounding various animate and inanimate objects, I am sure that if the price should reach sub-1000's, it would quickly become another weapon in the arsenal of hypochondriacs and hysteric pregnant wome
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I bet when MRI machines and X rays were coming out with their low quality/resolution pics you would have bee
Thank you for being a negativist (Score:2)
For one thing, you're already assuming that it is impossible for the machine to be able to tell the difference between tissue types and also to write good enough image analysis software to tell the difference between real tumors and false positives.
If the software and hardware is good, the device would reduce the number of visits to the doctor.
As for hypochondriacs, if false positives can be eliminated it would actually work against
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The extra cost for the real thing is for quality, reliability and insurance.
No (Score:3, Informative)
Do people sue pregnancy test kits if it tells them they weren't pregnant and they drank alcohol and the baby was born with problems? Or condom manufacturs for getting deadly diseases?
If they do, they havent been very successful
Disclaimers. Use them.
DISCLAIMER: The above post is not meant to encourage or discourage anyone from getting into the home MRI b
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That's a good idea. A home scanning technique that requires intravenously-administered, short-half-life-made-on-site-in-a-cyclotron radioisotopes. Er, what?
PET is something that you would use to confirm a diagnosis (look for metabolic hotspots if cancer is suspected) or detect metastases (tumours distant from the original site). It's never the first tool that a diagnostician reaches for.
Besides, the resolution of PET is crap
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They sent him a bill for a couple thousand dollars a week later--he's a returning student and is going to go even more in debt--but he got his MRI!
Lower health care costs? (Score:2)
Technology certainly doesn't have all the answers, but things like this can only lead to good.
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While some of your hospital bill is due to the cost of acquiring and maintaining the expensive machines, are you also aware that part of your bill is due to people who use the hospital's services but
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1) Not every patient who enters the Emergency Department is dying.
2) In my example, there are no restaurants that do not suffer from "dine and dash" patrons. The same is try for hospitals. There are no magical hospitals that get paid for 100% of the services they render.
Nothing _that_ new... (Score:3, Informative)
Its just that higher fields (or more correctly put, higher field gradients) allow for higher resolution.
Looking at this publication, they archived about 5mm resulution with a 50uT field.
Real high-end small bore scanners can get 3 orders of magniture higher.
And the "maybe can it fit in a glovebox" part is _severely_ limited by the use of 7(!) Squids... Each of which will need a LN/LH cryosystem.
Still, this looks quite interesting, but its not like it completely depricates the current stuff.
Re:Nothing _that_ new... (Score:4, Informative)
If you've got lots of time you can achieve more or less any resolution you want with any field strength you like. The problem is, the darn patients keep getting impatient and moving.
The summary is pretty wildly inaccurate. This is actually a dual field scanner that uses a stronger field to polarize the sample and a weaker one for readout. It's pretty cool, but it's a niche thing... these guys want to do MEG scanning along with MRI and MEG is allergic to large magnetic fields. It won't be replacing the regular superconducting scanners and it won't be making cheap in-home scanners possible.
You can do nMR in the Earth's magnetic field if you want to. It's actually possible to set it up at home. I think someone was selling science kits for a while.
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Can I finally have an MRI done? (Score:2)
So, perhaps now that they've found a way to get around the necessity of humongous electro-magnets, people like me will be able to take on an MRI wit
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Your doctors were doing you good service about the warnings with respect to MRI.
We Just Won the War On Terror. (Score:2, Interesting)
Now, there is.
If small, portable MRIs can be mass produced, we could have simple scanners that you step through in key areas, and quickly identify if you have explosives on your person. There's no need for trying to figure out who might try and blow someone or something up. Instead, we'll just be able to ca
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Um, can you explain why me any American should feel the need to defend you Taiwanese from the "real" China? You can't defend yourselves, and China knows it.
Magnets powered by supercooled helium? (Score:2)
What utter bull, When are the writers about scientific subjects going to go to school? This is knowledge I'd expect every Year 12 student to have so that they do not eject this kind of howler.
Ditto, of course to the dim nitwits who took the iron things into the MRI scanning room. If the US is going to try to keep its preeminence as a world power it had better start building a few new schools, and pay the teachers sufficient to get
What Technologies will Come from Small Cheap MRI? (Score:2)
I couldn't come up with very much. Maybe you can? Could you make a scanner that scans a whole book at once with an MRI, since it could take a 3D image of the insides of the book and then split it into pages with software? I guess it would have to detect locations where there is ink by looking for those molecules?
Unfortunately... (Score:2)
Re:Oy! My payments... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oy! My payments... (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, just a thought.
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When you can figure out how to do that without holding a gun to my head to force me to pay for it, I'll back you 100%.
maybe a little bitter about this (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a good thing I did get that expensive modern medical advance in America, though, because of the high-quality analysis and follow-up I got from the clinic. In total, I got one sentence out of it- "Your intestines are a little constricted." I don't think they could provide that kind of advanced analysis in India with their cheap CT scans.
I guess I'm wondering- are modern medical advances really as expensive as we're led to believe they are in America?
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Medical research happens when there's money behind the disease. Once the advance is made and commoditized for great loads of money to the first world (and the research is the main thing priced, not the build construction), it can be exported to the developing world and add value slightly to their firstworld sales numbers, for little extra effort.
If the first world didn't exist, then the developing world wouldn't have the luxury of down-marketting - they would have to get by without the tech bein
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I have a chronic neurological disorder that causes me to wake up in an ER strap
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Re:Oy! My payments... (Score:4, Interesting)
About the article: those pictures are pretty unclear but it's promising.
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Re:We have determined that your brain configuratio (Score:3, Funny)
We have determined that your brain configuration predisposes you to rebellion
(read that as: your head is still attached to your shoulders)
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QD's SQUIDs were also used in Gravity Probe B.