THE world’s most powerful MRI scanner was unveiled this week at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
The scanner has a 9.4-tesla magnet, six times as strong as the magnets in hospital scanners. Whereas standard scanners pick up signals from the hydrogen atoms in water molecules, high-field-strength scanners can resolve signals from other elements such as sodium, phosphorus, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. This means they can reveal far more information about living bodies. The Chicago team, led by Fred Thulborn, hopes to gain new insights into brain disorders such as strokes, Alzheimer’s and autism. There are concerns about safety, though.…
