Typical Examples of Compact MRI Systems

Up until now, several tens of compact MRI systems have been constructed and used for various purposes. Among them, two typical systems that use a yoked magnet and a yokeless magnet are described below. 

Salmon roe is a favorite food for Japanese people, often served with sushi. Salmon are captured in the ocean (about 1000 salmon in one fishing expedition) and separated into female and male in the fishing ports, because female salmon sell at a much higher price than male salmon. However, as selection by external 

The required speed for salmon selection is one salmon per second. To achieve this speed, projection data of a specific slice of a salmon should be used and the imaging capability is thus indispensable in developing a selection strategy for the projection data. 

If a small magnet for MR microscopy of small samples ( 1 cm3) could be developed, a handy or desktop MR microscope could be constructed. The yokeless permanent magnet is best suited for this purpose. 

Kose 1999, Portable MRI Systems, presented at the 5th International Conference on Magnetic Resonance Microscopy, Heidelberg, Germany. 

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