Discovery of MRI

The physical basis of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is the phenomenon of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). In order to prevent the word “nuclear” from causing people’s fear and eliminate the risk of nuclear radiation in NMR inspections, the current academic community has changed nuclear magnetic resonance to magnetic resonance (MR). The MR phenomenon was discovered by Bloch of Stanford University and Purcell of Harvard University in 1946, and the two were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1952. In 1967, Jasper Jackson first obtained MR signals of living tissues in animals. In 1971, Damian of the State University of New York in the United States proposed that it is possible to use the phenomenon of magnetic resonance to diagnose cancer. In 1973, Lauterbur used gradient magnetic fields to solve the problem of spatial positioning of MR signals, and obtained the first two-dimensional MR image of a water model, which laid the foundation for the application of MRI in the medical field. The first magnetic resonance image of the human body was born in 1978.

In 1980, the MRI scanner for diagnosing diseases was successfully developed, and clinical application began. The International Magnetic Resonance Society was formally established in 1982, speeding up the application of this new technology in medical diagnosis and scientific research units. In 2003, Lauterbu and Mansfield jointly won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in recognition of their major discoveries in magnetic resonance imaging research.