MRI is a technology that uses the resonance of hydrogen atoms to create images. MRI has a wide range of medical applications and is expected to play an important role in the future medical industry due to its high safety.
Wouldn’t it be great to be able to see every inch of the human body clearly at a glance? This has long been a question that humans have struggled with. The benefits of being able to see the inside of the human body clearly would be indescribable, from being able to identify exactly which organs are diseased to revolutionizing the field of medicine, uncovering the function of the brain, and advancing psychological research. In particular, such technology would be crucial for early detection and treatment of serious diseases such as cancer. If a disease is detected in its early stages, the chances of cure increase dramatically, and not only the patient’s life but also their quality of life can be greatly improved.
Against this backdrop, human endeavors began to bear fruit in the 20th century. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), also known as magnetic resonance imaging, was invented. MRI provides non-invasive, high-resolution images of the inside of the human body and remains an essential tool in medicine today. Advances in this technology have expanded its use beyond simply diagnosing diseases to analyze the body’s functional connectivity and nervous system activity. So how was MRI invented?
The basic principle of MRI starts with the fact that the human body is mostly composed of water. It uses the resonance of hydrogen atoms in water molecules to create images. To understand this resonance, we need to look at the structure of the hydrogen atom. A hydrogen atom consists of a nucleus and electrons surrounding the nucleus. Each individual hydrogen atom is magnetized in one direction, but since there are so many hydrogen atoms in the human body with random orientations, the magnetic fields cancel out, resulting in a neutral magnetic field. This is the normal state of the body.
When the MRI machine applies a magnetic field of a certain direction to the human body from the outside, the hydrogen atoms are aligned in one direction according to the direction of the external magnetic field, and the human body is magnetized in one direction. This is a prerequisite for hydrogen atoms in the human body to react with external electromagnetic waves. The MRI machine then emits strong electromagnetic waves into the body, and the oriented hydrogen atoms absorb the energy of the electromagnetic waves, which is called resonance. You can easily understand the resonance phenomenon in terms of jumping rope.
Just as two people have to time their jumps to make a high leap, hydrogen atoms absorb energy most efficiently when they match the frequency of the external electromagnetic waves. This is the key to the phenomenon of resonance, whereby the hydrogen atoms that absorb the energy reach a higher energy state. When the external electromagnetic wave is finally cut off, the hydrogen atoms in the higher energy state return to their original energy and produce weak electromagnetic waves, which can be detected to locate and image the hydrogen atoms in an MRI image.
As mentioned earlier, most of the human body is made up of water, so MRI imaging can be used to clearly image the internal tissues of living organisms. Furthermore, MRI is safer than other imaging diagnostic techniques, such as CT or X-ray, because there is no risk of radiation exposure. As a result, MRI is widely used in a variety of medical fields, including neuroscience, oncology, and cardiology.
With the above principles, MRI can be used to obtain clear images of the inside of the human body and can be used in various fields, so it is expected that there will be a lot of research and development in the future. In fact, Samsung has also entered the field of MRI research by targeting the medical industry as its next corporate investment. This will be an opportunity to further strengthen the competitiveness of Korea’s medical industry. In particular, as we are entering an aging society, advances in medical imaging technologies such as MRI can contribute greatly to improving public health and reducing medical costs. I hope that Korea will continue to actively research and invest in MRI and become a powerhouse in the medical industry.
