How does MRI make images?
Your body is composed primarily of water. Within each water molecule there are two hydrogen atoms. These hydrogen atoms have a neat property that allows them to align with the magnetic field. By applying energy from a surrounding antenna a weak signal can be collected from these hydrogen nuclei which can be made into pictures which demonstrate their location and provide some information with regard to the nature of the tissue they composed. How does this compare to other imaging techniques? While CT or Computerized Tomography is another cross sectional technique, there are some important differences between the two. CT imaging uses ionizing radiation or x-rays to make a pictures. While as the doses commonly used for imaging poses very little risk to the patient, it is generally accepted that no ionizing radiation is better than even a little ionizing radiation. While both CT and MR may use contrast to better demonstrate abnormal tissue such as a tumor, the contrast used in MR is relati
