THE more neurosurgeons know about the brain they are operating on, the better, but often they have to work from old images. Now Canadian researchers have found a way to deliver images as surgeons operate.
"Every few seconds, you get an updated image, so you can advance a tube through the brain and watch its progress," says Mark Bernstein, head of neurosurgery at the Toronto Hospital and part of the team developing the Image-Guided Minimally Invasive Therapy (IGMIT) machine.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) uses an intense magnetic field to make hydrogen atoms absorb and emit radio waves. These signals are picked up by a scanner, giving a detailed picture of what is happening inside the body.
Standard MRI machines are long tubes, just big enough for a patient to slide into. IGMIT, however, resembles a huge pair of earmuffs. The magnet itself is weak by MRI standardsonly 0.2 teslaand gives ...
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