MGH Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging 2016 | Page 6

advances in imaging technology

Portable MRI? It’s Closer Than You Think
Matt Rosen and colleagues describe a low-cost, high-performance technology that
paves the way for MRI in battlefield hospitals and other point-of-care locations

Recent years have seen tremendous
advances in the development and
application of magnetic resonance
imaging, allowing imaging of structures and even processes in the human body that would have been unimaginable 30 years ago, when the
first generation of commercial MRI
scanners was introduced.
But for all the gains in imaging
quality and speed, the underlying
technology—and its inherent limitations—remain largely the same.
MRI scanners still depend on huge
superconducting magnets to produce the high magnetic fields that
are needed for imaging. As a result,
scanners are confined to MRI suites
in hospitals or to large, tractor trailer-based units, preventing their use
in an array of new mobile applications.
Now a team of investigators at the
MGH Martinos Center has reported an approach to low-cost, highperformance MRI that would allow researchers and physicians to
overcome these limitations. They
describe the approach in a Nature
Scientific Reports paper published
online in October 2015.
“We envision a paradigm shift in
MRI, where mobile low-cost devices
enabled by ultra-low magnetic field
technology become ubiquitous, and
offer new ways to practice medicine,

The groundbreaking MRI technology is described in a study from the Martinos
Center. Shown here with the technology are Matthew Rosen (center), senior
author of the study and Director of the Center’s Low-Field Imaging Laboratory, and (clockwise from left to right) lead author Mathieu Sarracanie, Cris
LaPierre and Najat Salameh. Photo courtesy of Matt Rosen.