Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Okay, Well, not Team University is famous for having developed a technique of magnetic resonance imaging.

  • So we thought that for Easter we'd have a go at taking an image using magnetic resonance off a cream egg.

  • What are we going into?

  • An area where the magnetic field is very strong.

  • So we have to take out anything that could be magnetic because there's a danger will get pulled into the magnet.

  • In order to get a signal in Emery, we have to use radio waves.

  • The cream make inconveniently for memorize, surrounded by and metallic foil.

  • Radio waves won't pass through this for so in in an m R scanner and Emery machine.

  • What we're doing is measuring a signal that comes from hydrogen nuclei, those hydrogen nuclei.

  • They behave a bit like tiny magnets.

  • They line up with the magnetic field and were able to excite them in some way using radio waves, which have a very particular frequency.

  • When we excite them, they give us also back a radio wave signal.

  • That's what we pick up, and the signal that we then used to make an image and the key thing with them arise that we make the signal a little bit different, depending on where in the object that came from.

  • Then we can tell where the signal came from than an image.

  • We can say.

  • This much signal came from this place.

  • This much came from this place, and we can build up two dimensional, even a three dimensional picture of an object.

  • Normally, we're obviously imaging human subjects, vast majority of hydrogen nuclei and the body found in water molecules.

  • So normally we're looking at water, but it's also actually quite a lot of hygiene nuclei in In fact, in fact, probably what we're most likely to see if we see anything in the cream egg is actually the fat that's present in the chocolate and also in the in the cream filling.

  • But as this is Karen, who's gonna put the things into the scanner because I'm wearing a mic, which one I can't take into the magnet.

  • Your camera also doesn't like very strong magnetic fields.

  • You took it too close.

  • That's probably enough Baron magnetic material in there that it would eventually get pulled in way.

  • Actually, first to explain, we put in to cremate.

  • It's just to get a bit of a stronger signal.

  • The bright region here around the outside is the is the chocolate.

  • So probably I guess what we're seeing there is the fat inside the chocolate.

  • So we're seeing the hygiene nuclear in the fatty part of the chocolate than inside that slightly darker, mottled region is.

  • The is the creamy filling where probably we're seeing the water in that which eyes also giving us a signal.

  • But there's also fat in there as well.

  • Giving rise to a signal emery is a bit more complicated than that, and the signal depends on a few other factors, like how solid the material is.

  • That makes a bit more complicated to explain.

  • But it's also what makes memory a very powerful medical imaging technique because you can differentiate between tissues, which have quite similar amounts of water but slightly different properties in terms of, say, that stiffness or how much proteins.

  • And that's what allows us tow, differentiate disease tissue from normal tissue in some conditions.

  • So as we step through, you can see we're kind of going from the thickness of the cream egg down to the thin a bit at the end of the egg and it's just chocolate, so you can see that you just have a bright bit and not much darkness around it.

  • The thing that a lot of people do is when they first set up a system, a new scanner.

  • They don't want to put a person in first.

  • So the thing that a lot of people scan its fruit So we scanned.

  • Probably most fruits that are available or vegetables have been scanned.

  • So pineapple, aka, is very good one of the first images that was ever made in them, or I will actually of a red pepper.

  • So done, boys, Sir Peter Mansfield, when he was developing the technique, and he used that to really demonstrate the imaging was possible.

  • And have you ever image to cremate before?

  • Today?

  • I have to say I haven't so it's a new experience, So we thought probably it would be a good idea to water.

  • Look at some real eggs as well as cream makes.

  • See what we can see.

  • Hey there.

  • We can probably differentiate the yolk from the surrounding egg whites.

  • Let's have a go doing that way.

  • Put.

  • Actually, this time three eggs, three real eggs in here So we're looking again the cross sections, and we're seeing the egg whites, which is appearing as this sort of slightly lower intensity.

  • They were looking at mainly the water in the egg white, and then the brighter bit is the yolk where we're looking at the many, probably the facts.

  • We don't see anything from this shell itself because the shell has no water or fatter, so it doesn't leave us any signal.

  • It's interesting.

  • There's a little bit there inside the the egg, which I think if we go up yeah, there there's a little bit of air, which is that the this is basically the top.

  • This is vertically up, so the air's up at the top here, and I think that's that's in there because the egg kind of after it's laid, it cools down in the fluid, shrinks a bit, and it leaves a little bit.

  • So these the air pockets and these other two eggs again there at the top of the heirs at the top of the of the egg apparent.

  • That's what you when you boil an egg, gets the air bit.

  • That gives you that flat and end on the round a bit of the of the boiled egg because what the images we acquired their three dimensional, they lots of slices scanning three.

  • And that allows you to then see the three dimensional structure.

  • That's I guess, obviously much more useful you looking, say, set brain images and you want to.

  • I understand the relationship of different regions of the brain to talk to one another or two.

  • If your surgeon planning an operation, you wanted to find the best path to get to a particular area in the brain.

  • This kind of three D view could be very useful.

  • There's a three D rendering now of the cream eggs, so I'm gonna hopefully, right?

  • Take them around so you can see they're actually a little bit different than one another.

  • And there's a little bright SPLA gin, one of them, but not in the other one, which seems to be on the edge of the chocolate.

  • That can't be cream.

  • It's Yeah, I really like these.

  • Wants the safety.

  • Wait, they Absolutely Yeah, yeah, B B.

Okay, Well, not Team University is famous for having developed a technique of magnetic resonance imaging.

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it