Download MR HistoryA

M R I Physics
Course
Jerry Allison Ph.D.
Chris Wright B.S.
Tom Lavin B.S.
Department of Radiology
Medical College of Georgia
History
of
Magnetic Resonance
Imaging
Nuclear Magnetic
Resonance
• NMR was first described in
1946 by:
by
• BLOCH, Hansen, and Packard at
Stanford University
• and independently by
• PURCELL, Torrey, and Pound at
Harvard University
BLOCH and PURCELL
shared the
Nobel Prize for Physics
in
1952
Lauterbur and Mansfield
shared the
Nobel Prize
in
Physiology or Medicine
in
2003
Paul Lauterbur (born 1929), Urbana, Illinois, USA,
discovered the possibility to create a two-dimensional
picture by introducing gradients in the magnetic field.
By analysis of the characteristics of the emitted radio
waves, he could determine their origin.
This made it possible to build up two-dimensional
pictures of structures that could not be visualized
with other methods.
http://www.nobel.se/medicine/laureates/2003/press.html
Peter Mansfield (born 1933), Nottingham, England,
Further developed the utilization of gradients in
the magnetic field. He showed how the signals
could be mathematically analyzed, which made
it possible to develop a useful imaging technique.
Mansfield also showed how extremely fast imaging
could be achievable. This became technically
possible within medicine a decade later.
http://www.nobel.se/medicine/laureates/2003/press.html
Lauterbur, while at SUNY at
Stonybrook in 1973, developed a
technique that coupled the resonant
NMR field with a magnetic field
gradient to produce a two-dimensional
image--ZEUGMATOGRAPHY (“join
together” magnetic fields to produce a
picture). This technique is now used
for 2D and 3D MRI.
Lauterbur and Damadian
are given credit
for the birth of
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
in
1973
The medical doctor who claims to have
discovered the signals emitted by tissues
which led to the development of the MRI is
blasting the Nobel Committee for its refusal
to recognize his achievement. In an full
page advertisement published Monday in
the New York Times, Dr. Raymond
Damadian said he was the creator of the
first MRI – standing for magnetic resonance
imaging – which he also notes is
"emphatically an MD's invention."
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/11/3/205451.shtml
Damadian said the Nobel committee has a
highly politicized selection process, one that
also favors Doctors of Philosophy and other
scientists over Doctors of Medicine.
Damadian said in his advertisement that in
1970 he first discovered that cancerous and
normal tissues offer different signals for
imaging purposes. Damadian said that on
July 3, 1977, he conducted the first human
scan using an MRI.
"Although the two PhD's who have been
named for the prize – one a chemist and the
other a physicist – made later contributions
to MRI technology, as have many others
since then, there is no way, outside of
outright deception, to ascribe primary credit
for the invention of the MRI to two
scientists who merely imagined improved
ways to display the image of the signals I
discovered," Damadian wrote in his ad.
"He said he developed the first medical uses for
MRIs, proposed the first body scanner, discovered
the tissue signals picked up by MRIs, built the first
MRI with his students, then "used the scanner to
obtain the first MRI picture of patients with
cancer."
"By contrast," he continued, the committee "has
decided to honor for 'discoveries concerning the
invention of the MRI' the PhD's Paul Lauterbur
and Peter Mansfield, along with literally thousands
of other research scientists – had been working
with NMR machines for 25 years (1945-1970)
without one of them ever asking himself if NMR
might have a medical application."
"I believe it is outrageously unjust that the Nobel
should decide to exclude from its award the MD
genesis of MRI," he added.
Damadian, while at Downstate
Medical Center (NY,NY), developed
FONAR (field focusing nuclear
magnetic resonance). The FONAR
technique could acquire data from one
voxel. The voxel location could be
manipulated to build up an image.
Damadian
received a patent for
“Apparatus and Method
for Detecting Cancer in
Tissue” in 1974
Nuclear Induction
Apparatus & Display
Illustration included in Damadian’s patent
application in 1974.
Illustration included in Damadian’s patent
application in 1974.
The first image of a live
animal was acquired in
1976, and the first image
of the human thorax in
1977.
March, 1977.
The first attempt
to take a human
NMR scan. Dr.
Raymond Damadian
was the first patient.
Because of the
uncertainty of the
outcome, he wore a
cardiac monitor and
a blood pressure cuff.
July, 1977. The first successful human body NMR
scan with Dr. Lawrence Minkoff as the volunteer.
The first human NMR scan
One of Damadian’s
early scanners resides
at the Smithsonian.
The “Indomitable,” the NMR scanner used for
the world’s first human body NMR scan.
Damadian founded
FONAR Corporation to
market MRI systems.
FONAR β 3000 ca. 1982