Physical principles of MR scanners

MR (magnetic resonance) scanner is arguably quite a bit more complex from the underlying computation and physics standpoint than a CT machine, and also quite a bit more flexible.

Let me take you through a very basic introduction into how these wonderful machines operate and produce images.

I have to mention that the explanation of the MR scanner operation that I provide here is quite a bit simplified. It is sufficient for you to understand where the data is coming from and why it looks the way it does, but understanding the details of how exactly biological tissue types are localized in 3D space by the MR scanner requires more of a digression into physics and quantum mechanics than we wanted to have in this course. If you have further questions on how it all comes together, we will have links at the end of this section which will help you explore further.