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Image: Drs. Raymond Damadian, Lawrence Minkoff, and Michael Goldsmith (left to right) and the completed Indomitable (the world’s first magnetic resonance scanner) that performed the first scan of a live human being. NSF-supported fundamental research led to the development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology. <I>[See related images: Sagittal MRI Image of Brain and First Human MRI Scan.]</I><BR> <BR> <U><B>More about this Image</B></U><BR> Fundamental research, supported by the NSF, led to the development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology. MRI is widely used in hospitals for purposes like detecting tumors and internal tissue damage in patients, and investigating differences in brain tissue.<BR> <BR> MRI technology works like this. An MRI imager surrounds a patient with magnets. The magnetic field created by the magnets causes atomic nuclei in the patient’s body to line up parallel to the field. A coil in the imager jars the nuclei with radio waves. They resonate, producing a faint radio signal that a computer amplifies and translates into an image. Unlike X-rays or CAT scans, MRI lets doctors distinguish blood vessels from malignant tissue. Thumbnail

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