Plain Explain: MRI
How do MRIs work?
The other day, I got my first brain MRI and the experience was not what I expected. After donning my little gown and taking out all the metal on my head—minus one earring that just can never come out—I was put into the MRI tube head first. For the next twenty minutes, I was bombarded with magnetic stuff and it was much louder and violent than I’d imagined. Despite the best efforts of the faux-sunny sky above me, it was not a relaxing experience. Of course, I did almost fall asleep but as proven many times, I can pretty much fall asleep under any circumstance.
So how does a Magnetic Resonance Imaging work? With my working knowledge of microwaves, I’d imagine that each different wave of sound and slight reposition was various frequencies of microwave that was designed to push through me. The closest analog to what I was experiencing is obviously, being inside a microwave. However, I did not heat up or blow up, and I didn’t feel unpleasant whatsoever. I’d imagine that these microwaves are low dose, designed to gently—relatively—push waves through each part of my body. [Edit: Did I somehow confuse “magnetic” with “microwave?” Yes, I did. But I won’t remove that part because Plain Explain is also, apparently, unedited.]
The first wave of magnetic waves is enough to penetrate my skin, and then each subsequent wave goes deeper and deeper, eventually revealing all my body, down to the bone. It’s also possible that the magnetic waves are done in reverse, with the strongest first, to establish what my brain / body looks like from the inside out.
Also, there must be some sort of sensitive film below me, so that the magnetic waves can create an image somehow. I imagine it’s like shooting protons at the wall, like how they figured out quantum physics. All in all, MRIs are basically miracles.
