Giant magnet, heavy as a dozen cars, installed at Stevens Hall for breakthrough MRI machine

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A next-generation 7T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine was installed Feb. 2 at Stevens Hall, home to the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute, on the USC Health Sciences Campus. To accommodate the machine’s magnet, which weighs 22 tons (roughly the equivalent of a dozen small cars), a crane carefully lowered the magnet through a hatch in the imaging room roof. It’s the only 7T MRI machine of its kind in North America, and the only version of this machine worldwide installed for investigational research. With it, scientists can capture enhanced images of brain structure and function, allowing for cutting-edge science in healthy subjects as well as those suffering from a variety of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, autism and epilepsy.