Molecular MRI (mMRI) is a special implementation of Molecular Imaging for the non-invasive visualization of biological processes at the cellular and molecular level. More specifically, mMRI comprises the contrast agent-mediated alteration of tissue relaxation times for the detection and localization of molecular disease markers, cells or therapeutic drugs. MRI yields topographical, anatomical maps; functional MRI (fMRI) provides rendering of physiologic functions and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) reveals the distribution patterns of some specific metabolites. mMRI provides an additional level of information at the molecular or cellular level, thus extending MRI further beyond the anatomical and physiological level. These advances brought by mMRI are mandatory for MRI to be competitive in the age of molecular medicine.

Reprinted with Permissions from Arne Hengerer and Jan Grimm