Super scan reveals brain secrets (BBC) [View All]

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By Fergus Walsh
Medical correspondent, BBC News

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The seven Tesla magnet - the biggest in the UK - is now Professor Peter Morris's baby and he is very excited by its potential.

The 40-tonne magnet was delivered in December 2004 and building it into a working scanner was no simple matter.

With a magnetic field 140,000 times that of the Earth's, it throws out a powerful force that has to be shielded in concrete and more than 200 tonnes of iron.
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"Essentially what we are seeing with the seven Tesla is an amplified difference between the different tissues, and with much finer resolution, so we can see much finer detail," said Professor Morris.

"We can look down at a lower scale than we have been able to before. We know that there are some lesions which are located within particular structures which are currently too fine to see, and we hope we will be able to address those at seven Tesla.


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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5371748.stm