MR research plumbs form and function

By Jane Lowers, Supplements Editor

A survey of primary–care physicians put MRI at the top of the list of innovations that have changed patient care for the better, ahead of drug therapies for cancer and cardiac disease or transplant procedures. (Viagra came in at the bottom of the list.)

MR’s ability to image tissue details has made it useful for conditions from brain masses to arthritis, but it has also received a certain amount of gee–whiz attention for its catchy functional brain images and for experiments with 3–, 7–, and even 8–tesla machines. Every week, it seems, a new study using MR uncovers a little more about the anatomical roots of human behavior or shows the exquisite detail a high–field scanner can coax out of small anatomy.

As the authors in this supplement make clear, the everyday and the exotic are not mutually exlusive in MR imaging. Functional imaging and high–field imaging, while relatively new, are building a reputation for uncovering clinically useful findings unobserved on conventional 1.5–tesla scans. Not every patient who presents with seizure will need more than the traditional sequences on a 1.5–tesla scanner can offer, but the research on high–field imaging presents exciting diagnostic options for those who do.