MRI developments in perspective.

Following Paul Lauterbur's seminal 1973 paper in Nature, considerable work was needed to overcome a number of physical, engineering and technical problems before the new technique of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could be applied clinically. Much of that pioneering work was done in the UK. Since the first head and whole-body images were obtained in the late 1970s, MRI has become a widely used clinical imaging modality capable of yielding tomographic images of excellent spatial resolution and tissue contrast. This review outlines the historical development of MRI in the context both of the technical problems which had to be overcome, and of the clinical uses of MRI. Current areas of research, such as the use of MRI to map brain function, the measurement of physiological parameters such as tissue perfusion, and the use of open-access real-time MRI to guide interventional procedures, are briefly discussed.