Future Technology Trends

 By 2013, researchers hope to construct the largest magnetic resonance imaging device for human research.  This mammoth future machine will be much stronger than current MRI’s.  Its rating of 11.7 tesla is over 230,000 times the Earth’s magnetic field.  The current world record holder for scanning technology stands at 9.4 tesla.  Smaller MRI’s rated at 11.7 tesla already exist in research labs, but they are only used to study animals.  The majority of clinical machines in the world are significantly less powerful than that (between 1 to 3 Tesla).  This apparatus has to have a uniform field in a much larger area, so there are many engineering obstacles to overcome before putting it to use.  Once ready, it could lead to clearer images of the inner workings of the human body.  

The coils in the MRI will be built out of a few thousand kilometers of niobium-titanium NbTi superconducting wires.  They will be immersed in thousands of liters of superfluid helium in order to cool them to a very low temperature of 1.8 kelvin above absolute zero.  The main magnet coil itself will weigh around 45 tons.   This equipment is necessary to cover a larger volume than what is used in other high field animal scanners.  The opening for the machine will be exactly 90 cm in diameter so as to allow an entire human body to enter.   The device needs to be carefully shielded from the outside.  This will be done with a second field that cancels out the first one.

This new MRI will be used strictly for research purposes and the cost to maintain it may be enormous.  It seems doubtful that this will ever find its way into clinical use.  It just takes too much skill and money to sustain.  Some scientists are still wondering whether the move to 7 tesla clinical machines will happen any time soon.  However, new breakthroughs in cheaper high temperature superconductors are certainly one way forward to making this type of technology economically viable for doctors and patients.  It remains to be seen how practical this current design will be and the degree to which it can be optimized in the future.  The superconducting cables alone currently cost 10 million dollars.

The possibilities for this science are nearly endless.  It could help academics to better understand human biochemistry and delineate the neurochemical reactions that underlie thought processes.  It will have the power to resolve small groups of neurons within the brain.  Neurospin scientists are currently working to develop novel contrast agents for molecular imaging. Others are programming advanced software and machine learning algorithms that will be able to analyze the massive amount of data that the machine will create.  Any way to amplify the MRI will be exploited to maximum effect.  By 2014, it has been claimed that future brain mapping capabilities could be pushed to around 20 microns.   The kind of resolution afforded by the device may very well enable the creation of a connectome diagram of the brain. The “mind reading” capabilities of fMRI have been overhyped.  Further progress in this area, though, may help to materialize outcomes that seem more like science fiction.  Special computer programs have been able to distinguish between different mental states of a variety of subjects on a less powerful scanner for example.  Only time will tell what else can become possible.

There have already been issues with the timeline of building this machine.  It was originally scheduled to be in operation by 2011, but this date has been pushed back to 2013.  There have been some concerns about the safety and resolution detail when using the higher magnetic field. They are reaching a point of diminishing returns with pushing this science frontier forward.

Information about engineering aspects of the project can be found at this website.

Read more about the ultra-high field MRI machine in this older PDF file.

Neurospin has several goals concerning imaging neural structures (see PDF pg 13-17).