A safer image

Alexej Jerschow, an assistant professor of physical chemistry, and Norbert Müller, a professor of physical organic chemistry at the

in

, have developed a completely non-invasive imaging method.

Their work is said to offer the benefits of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) while eliminating patients’ exposure to irradiation and setting the stage for the creation of light, mobile MRI technology.

MRI allows clinicians to non-invasively visualize soft tissue in the interior of the human body through the application of radiofrequency (rf) irradiation. However, the rf pulses of MRI machines deposit heat in patients and medical staff, though safety regulations that limit energy deposition have long been established. Jerschow and Müller have devised a low-energy, non-invasive nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technique that does not require external rf-irradiation. Their technique, instead, relies on the detection of spontaneous, proton spin-noise in a tightly coupled rf-antenna coil.

In order to reconstruct spin-noise images that characterize MRI, the researchers used a commercial, liquid-state NMR spectrometer equipped with a cryogenically cooled probe.