X-Message-Number: 1981
Date: 18 Mar 93 01:20:44 EST
From: JOHN K CLARK <>
Subject: CRYONICS Fun With Magnets

 Wouldn't it be great if you could somehow safely and painlessly make 
a compleat record of your brain structure. Then even if you get hit 
by a bus a hour after the scan the only thing you would lose would 
be 60 minutes of memories. well if we could just wind better magnetic 
coils we could. Maybe.
 A run of the mill Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine (MRI) can make 
a 3D image of an entire living CONSCIOUS brain without radiation. 
It can revel structures so small it would take a good magnifying glass 
to see. If the resolution were 100 times better perhaps we would have 
enough information to reconstruct the individual in a nanoteck age, 
especially if we also had on record the persons genetic code.

 I am not an expert on MRI but even I can think of two ways to 
 increase resolution , there are probably many others.

  1) Improve the software. Very recently Dr. Aaron G Filler of the 
     University of Washington was able to image tiny nerve fibers 
     for the first time. He did this by rewriting the software that    
     interpret the faint signals given off by a MRI machine 
     and convert them into pictures.

  2) Increase the magnetic field. The average hospital MRI has a field 
     of about 3000 gauss although some cheap models only have 500. 
     The strongest magnetic field ever produced was 372000 gauss       
     at the National Magnet Laboratory at MIT.Using a field this strong 
     in a MRI machine would not be a trivial endeavor but as far 
     as I know (which I admit is not very far) no new science          
     would be needed just excellent engineering.

Again I am not a MRI expert so I may have made an error in my reasoning, 
if so I hope someone would point it out.

[ John, Brian Wowk's Feb. 19 message #1770 mentioned difficulties in
  distinguishing single cells deep in the brain (and thus far from
  the coils of the MRI) because of all the noise from the other cells
  throughout the brain.  If you can think of a way around that,
  you may have a good business opportunity. - KQB ]

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