Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists have replaced the large magnets needed for MRI by using a combination of “dynamic nuclear polarization” to align carbon 13 nuclei before they are injected into the body and a new generation of superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDS) to pick up the signals used to reconstruct an image.

That should make ultra low field MRI images of metabolism in action even easier to make and paves the way for real time imaging of metabolism.