The world’s most powerful MRI machine has started proving its worth, by scanning living human brains. The resulting images give an ultra high resolution glimpse into the brain, which will help us better understand the nature of consciousness and treat neurodegenerative diseases.
Developed by the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), the Iseult MRI machine packs a magnetic field strength of 11.7 Teslas (T). By comparison, conventional MRI machines in wide use in hospitals today are usually 1.5 or at most 3 T.
The main benefit of that extra power is that much higher resolution images of the brain can be taken, much quicker. In just four minutes, Iseult can capture images down to 0.2 mm (0.008 in) of brain tissue horizontally, in ‘slices’ just 1-mm (0.04-in) thick. That volume is the equivalent of a few thousand neurons at a time.
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