A Short History of MRI
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a diagnostic imaging modality that utilizes a magnet to produce superior images of the human body and one of the most important medical imaging developments in the 20th century6,7. Although the discovery of MRI is usually credited to Paul Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield, there has been a number of other scientists whose work also helped lead to the discovery of this technology6. These scientists include Nikola Tesla, who discovered alternating currents from a magnet, and Jen Baptiste Joseph Fourier, a 19th century mathematician who developed the Fourier transform method that paved the way to creating the computer computations necessary for MRI digital imaging6,8. Additionally, Sir Joseph Larmor discovered how the strength of a magnetic field affects the behavior of protons and developed the Larmor equation, which is the basis of MRI technology. Some of the more recent significant contributions include winner of the 1944 Nobel Prize in Physics, Isidor Rabi, a physicist who used Larmor’s equation to discover how atoms behaved and who coined the term “Nuclear Magnetic Resonance”9(p. 574) to describe this technology, which later became known as Magnetic Resonance Imaging or MRI6.
Soon after Lauterbur and Mansfield’s discoveries, interest in MRI as a clinical tool in medical imaging expanded6. In the early 1980s, MRI technology began to be used in clinical medical imaging and its popularity soared due to its noninvasive nature, superior soft tissue images, and lack of dangerous ionizing radiation as used in x-ray imaging. From this point, the ground work was laid for utilizing MRIs for a variety of medical imaging needs8,9.
Not long after the use of MRI as a diagnostic imaging tool became more common, patients’ claustrophobia and anxiety during this exam became prevalent. One of the earliest articles published with MRI claustrophobia as the topic was in 1984. The article suggested that scanning patients in the prone position would help alleviate their anxiety10. Another early journal article written by Elizabeth A. Klonoff described a single clinical case study in which a woman with a brain tumor was unable to complete an MRI examination even though it was imperative for a definitive diagnosis and subsequent treatment11. As the popularity of MRI imaging increased, it became apparent that even though this new imaging modality had great potential, interventions were necessary to ensure patients could endure the examination with relative comfort10,12,13.