Historical Development

The history of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) includes the work of many
researchers who contributed to the discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)
and described the underlying physics of magnetic resonance imaging, starting early in
the twentieth century. MR imaging was invented by Paul C. Lauterbur who developed a
mechanism to encode spatial information into an NMR signal using magnetic field
gradients in September 1971; he published the theory behind it in March 1973.

The factors leading to image contrast (differences in tissue relaxation time values) had
been described nearly 20 years earlier by physician and scientist Erik Odeblad and
Gunnar Lindström. Among many other researchers in the late 1970s and 1980s, Peter
Mansfield further refined the techniques used in MR image acquisition and processing,
and in 2003 he and Lauterbur were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
for their contributions to the development of MRI. The first clinical MRI scanners were
installed in the early 1980s and significant development of the technology followed in
the decades since, leading to its widespread use in medicine today.

In 1950, spin echoes and free induction decay were first detected by Erwin Hahn and in
1952,Herman Carr produced a one-dimensional NMR spectrum as reported in his
Harvard PhD thesis. The next step (from spectra to imaging) was proposed by Vladislav
Ivanov in Soviet Union, who filed in 1960 a patent application for a Magnetic Resonance
Imaging device.Ivanov's main contribution was the idea of using magnetic field gradient,
combined with a selective frequency excitation/readout, to encode the spatial
coordinates.

In modern terms, it was only proton-density (not relaxation times) imaging, which was
also slow since, only one gradient direction was used at a time and the imaging had to
be done slice-by-slice. Nevertheless, it was a true Magnetic Resonance Imaging
procedure. Originally rejected as "improbable", Ivanov's application was finally approved
in 1984 (with the original priority date).

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By 1959, Jay Singer had studied blood flow by NMR relaxation time measurements of
blood in living humans.[15][16] Such measurements were not introduced into common
medical practice until the mid-1980s, although a patent for a whole-body NMR machine
to measure blood flow in the human body was filed by Alexander Ganssen in early
1967.

In the 1960s, the results of work on relaxation, diffusion, and chemical exchange of
water in cells and tissues of various types appeared in the scientific literature. In 1967,
Ligon reported the measurement of NMR relaxation of water in the arms of living human
subjects. In 1968, Jackson and Langham published the first NMR signals from a living
animal, an anesthetized rat.

In the 1970s, it was realized that the relaxation times are key determinants of contrast in
MRI and can be used to detect and differentiate a range of pathologies. A number of
research groups had showed that early cancer cells tended to exhibit longer relaxation
times than their corresponding normal cells and as such stimulated initial interest in the
idea of detecting cancer with NMR. These early groups include Damadian, Hazlewood
and Chang and several others. This also initiated a program to catalogue the relaxation
times of a wide range of biological tissues, which became one of the main motivations
for the development of MRI .[24]

Raymond Damadian's "Apparatus and method for detecting cancer in tissue"

In a March 1971 paper in the journal Science, Raymond Damadian, an Armenian-
American doctor and professor at the Downstate Medical Center State University of
New York (SUNY), reported that tumors and normal tissue can be distinguished in vivo
by NMR. Damadian's initial methods were flawed for practical use, relying on a point-by-
point scan of the entire body and using relaxation rates, which turned out not to be an
effective indicator of cancerous tissue. While researching the analytical properties of
magnetic resonance, Damadian created a hypothetical magnetic resonance cancer-
detecting machine in 1972. He patented such a machine, U.S. Patent 3,789,832 on
February 5, 1974. Lawrence Bennett and Dr. Irwin Weisman also found in 1972 that
neoplasms display different relaxation times than corresponding normal tissue.
Zenuemon Abe and his colleagues applied the patent for a targeted NMR scanner, U.S.
Patent 3,932,805 on 1973. They published this technique in 1974 Damadian claims to
have invented the MRI.

The US National Science Foundation notes "The patent included the idea of using NMR
to 'scan' the human body to locate cancerous tissue. However, it did not describe a
method for generating pictures from such a scan or precisely how such a scan might be
done.

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 Raymond Damadian's "Apparatus and method for detecting cancer in tissue"

Paul Lauterbur at Stony Brook University expanded on Carr's technique and developed
a way to generate the first MRI images, in 2D and 3D, using gradients. In 1973,
Lauterbur published the first nuclear magnetic resonance image and the first cross-
sectional image of a living mouse in January 1974.[37] In the late 1970s, Peter
Mansfield, a physicist and professor at the University of Nottingham, England,
developed the echo-planar imaging (EPI) technique that would lead to scans taking
seconds rather than hours and produce clearer images than Lauterbur had. Damadian,
along with Larry Minkoff and Michael Goldsmith, obtained an image of a tumor in the
thorax of a mouse in 1976.[39] They also performed the first MRI body scan of a human
being on July 3, 1977, studies they published in 1977. In 1979, Richard S. Likes filed a
patent on k-space U.S. Patent 4,307,343.

During the 1970s a team led by John Mallard built the first full-body MRI scanner at the
University of Aberdeen.[43] On 28 August 1980 they used this machine to obtain the
first clinically useful image of a patient's internal tissues using MRI, which identified a
primary tumour in the patient's chest, an abnormal liver, and secondary cancer in his
bones.[44] This machine was later used at St Bartholomew's Hospital, in London, from
1983 to 1993. Mallard and his team are credited for technological advances that led to
the widespread introduction of MRI.[45]

In 1975, the University of California, San Francisco Radiology Department founded the
Radiologic Imaging Laboratory (RIL).[46] With the support of Pfizer, Diasonics, and later
Toshiba America MRI, the lab developed new imaging technology and installed systems
in the US and worldwide.[47] In 1981 RIL researchers, including Leon Kaufman and
Lawrence Crooks, published Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Medicine. In the
1980s the book was considered the definitive introductory textbook to the subject.[48]In
1980 Paul Bottomley joined the GE Research Center in Schenectady, New York.

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His team ordered the highest field-strength magnet then available, a 1.5 T system, and
built the first high-field device, overcoming problems of coil design, RF penetration and
signal-to-noise ratio to build the first whole-body MRI/MRS scanner. The results
translated into the highly successful 1.5 T MRI product-line, delivering over 20,000
systems. In 1982, Bottomley performed the first localized MRS in the human heart and
brain. After starting collaboration on heart applications with Robert Weiss at Johns
Hopkins, Bottomley returned to the university in 1994 as Russell Morgan Professor and
director of the MR Research Division.

The first MRI scanner built and used in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary in Scotland.