Is high-field MRI harmful?

Although high-field MRI has been already tested in humans and considered safe to do clinical studies, there is some new evidence concerning high-field MRI. Apparently, there is a link between depression and the high-field MRI radiographers. I was very surprised by this link. The complete news is here.

My personal thought is that working with high-field MRI might cause depression, not because of the high-field itself, but because working with high-field MRI can be a constant "this is not working that well"! Imagine to work with a machine that is constantly giving problems... I would be depressed too!

I hope there is more clarification about this matter in the future. It is time that we know the long term effects of MRI fields.

Connectome - understanding the human brain

Science has published an interesting article about the lack of understanding of the human brain. We have to understand what is the normal brain and the normal "connectome" to be able to distinguish it from dysfunctional brains. The different scales to approach its understanding are described. As you can imagine, I am a fan of the MRI approach to understand the brain. The article is very clear and can be read by non-medical imaging specialists, although the knowledge of science is probably necessary.

http://www.sciencemag.org/site/products/lst_20130118.xhtml

And to connect with yesterday's post, a scientist states that thanks to a "worldwide shortage of liquid helium.", the high-field MRI is not working, because "To cool this huge magnet we need something like 40,000 L of liquid helium, and we can't get it.".