Higher strength magnets push imaging limits

Technologists are well-versed in the power of 1.5T and 3.0T MR scanners, but not everyone knows what a 7.0T scanner can do. An article published in Nature³, the international weekly journal of science, provides some perspective on the power of high-field magnets. According to the article, a 3.0T scanner can detect details as small as 1 millimeter and at 7.0T that resolution can be as fine as 0.5 millimeters. That’s enough to see the six layers of the cerebral cortex, the part of the brain responsible for humans’ high level of cognition, and allow researchers to measure activity in these areas. Studying the activity can reveal how information is traveling and potentially provide a better picture of how things like memory work.