The history of MRI begins in the year 1946 with the discovery of the phenomenon of magnetic resonance. This was done by scientists Felix Bloch and Edward Purcell. Both scientists would receive a Nobel Prize in 1952 for their discoveries. From 1954 to the early 1970s, MRI was developed and used for chemical and physical studies of molecular structures. In 1971, Raymond Damadian showed that the resonance of tumor tissue was different from that of healthy tissue, this became the motivation to use this research method to detect diseases. In 1973 the CT was introduced by Houndsfield, this is important to the MRI because this evolution showed that hospitals were willing to spend large sums of money to get a sound examination method in house. In that same year, magnetic resonance imaging was demonstrated on small test tubes, by Paul Lauterbur. To do so, he used the same calculation technique used in the CT scan. In 1975, Richard Ernst launched the idea of using phase and frequency differences, and the use of Fourier transform, a technique that today’s MRI still uses. Again a few years later in 1977, the first scan was made of a body, by Raymond Damadian. That same year, echo-planar imaging was proposed by Peter Mansfield.
Edelstein’s team demonstrated a scan of the body in which it took five minutes to create an image using the traditional method. With the echo-planar imaging, it was done in 5 seconds without significant loss of quality. Further work on magnetic resonance was done in other fields, so that in 1986 a microscope was developed with a resolution of about 10 µm.
In 1987, the echo-planar method was used to make the first application of cardio-MRI, and the MR-Angio was also further perfected so that it became possible to obtain images of the bloodstreams without the use of contrast media.
Even now, new techniques and applications for the MRI are in full swing. It is still a young technique whose applications are not yet fully known
