MRI from the ground up

21 units, from the nucleus to a protocol 0 of 21
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21 units from the nucleus to a scanner protocol. Each asks a question and hands you something you can operate to answer it.

how this page works

Six chapters: where the signal comes from, how you talk to it, why it dies, where contrast comes from, where position comes from, and the recipes that combine all of it. By the end you can read a line of a real scanner protocol and say what every number does.

Every underlined term opens its definition, and the Reference button lists all of them at any point, so you never have to scroll back to recall what TR was. All curves and images are computed from the Bloch equations and the signal equation, nothing is drawn by hand. Progress is saved in this browser.

One number leaves this page: how many units you have finished. It is attached to a random label that lives in memory and is gone when you close the tab, so it counts visits and not people. No cookie, no advertising network, no address, nothing stored on your machine except your own progress.

Anatomy is schematic and contains no patient data. This is teaching material about the physics, not a basis for diagnosis. Written by Josh Decker, MD, board-certified radiologist.