Physical principles of NMR tomography.

Using nuclear magnetic resonance tomography it is possible to produce sectional images of the density and relaxation times of the protons within the human body. After a review of the general principles of nuclear magnetic resonance it is explained how this physical effect can be used for generating tomographic images in medical diagnosis. The major components of an imaging system and the physical and technical potentials and limitations of this new method are described. The different appearance of tissue and body fluids in spin-density, T1 and T2 images, as well as resulting problems of interpretation are discussed with typical examples.