The Hydrogen Nucleus - Video Lesson

Hey, everybody. Welcome to today's lesson about the basic principles of MRI. This lesson focuses on why hydrogen is the MR active nucleus of choice in MRI, including the magnetic properties of the hydrogen nucleus such as spin, precession, and the Larmor frequency. Although there are other m r active nuclei in the body, hydrogen is the nucleus of choice for m r I. More specifically, when discussing MRI, we focus on the hydrogen isotope protium because its nucleus has one proton and zero neutrons. Because protium is the most abundant hydrogen isotope at more than ninety nine point nine eight percent, we will simply refer to it as hydrogen in the remaining lessons. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the human body, primarily found in water and fats, providing a strong signal for MRI. Hydrogen also has a large magnetic moment relative to its mass, which makes it