About MRI Academy
MRI Academy is a free, graduate-level course in magnetic resonance imaging built for radiology residents, radiologic technologists, MR physicists-in-training, and anyone who wants to understand the machine from the spin up. It is deliberately not a slide deck: the physics is taught through tools you manipulate, and the clinical material is anchored to real, openly-licensed MRI volumes you can load and explore.
Philosophy
- Free and open. No account, no paywall, no tracking. The source is MIT-licensed.
- Interactive first. Relaxation, k-space, contrast and pulse timing are things you should be able to feel, not just read about.
- Honest about scope. Constants and signal models are textbook approximations for teaching behavior, not for quantitative mapping or clinical decisions.
Data sources & licensing
The course ships a bundled core of openly-licensed volumes (so it works self-contained) and streams a larger library on demand. It now spans the body head to toe — explore it in the Body Atlas. Attribution by source:
- Single-subject brain multi-contrast (T1/T2/PD/MRA), pCASL, BOLD and the linear MNI152 — the NiiVue project.
- MNI152NLin2009c T1/T2 templates and the gray-matter map — TemplateFlow (ICBM152, freely redistributable).
- Second-subject brain and the 4D diffusion series — OpenNeuro ds000114 (CC0).
- Cervical spine and neck — OpenNeuro ds002393 / ds004507 (CC0).
- Cardiac and prostate MRI — the Medical Segmentation Decathlon (CC-BY-SA 4.0).
- Foot/ankle MRI — SegmentAnyBone, Mazurowski Lab @ Duke (CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0, used non-commercially).
This course is exclusively MRI — no CT, ultrasound, or other modalities — by design.
| Dataset | Type | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Brain · T1-weighted | MRI · T1 | Bundled |
| Brain · T2-weighted | MRI · T2 | Bundled |
| Brain · Proton density | MRI · PD | Bundled |
| Brain · MR angiography (TOF) | MRI · TOF-MRA | Bundled |
| Brain · Diffusion (4D DWI) | MRI · DWI | Streamed |
| Brain · Perfusion (pCASL) | MRI · ASL | Bundled |
| Brain · Functional (BOLD) | MRI · BOLD EPI | Bundled |
| Template · MNI152 (linear) | MRI · T1 template | Bundled |
| Template · MNI152 2009c T1 | MRI · T1 template | Bundled |
| Template · MNI152 2009c T2 | MRI · T2 template | Bundled |
| Atlas · Gray-matter map | GM probability | Bundled |
| Template · SPM152 | MRI · T1 template | Streamed |
| Brain · T1 (subject 2) | MRI · T1 | Bundled |
| Brain · T1 (subject 3) | MRI · T1 | Streamed |
| Brain · T1 (subject 4) | MRI · T1 | Streamed |
| Brain · T1 (subject 5) | MRI · T1 | Streamed |
| Brain · T1 (repeat scan) | MRI · T1 | Streamed |
| Cervical spine · T2 | MRI · T2 | Bundled |
| Cervical spine · T1 | MRI · T1 | Streamed |
| Neck · T2 (0.6 mm) | MRI · T2 | Bundled |
| Cervical spine · T2 (site B) | MRI · T2 | Streamed |
| Cervical spine · T2 (site C) | MRI · T2 | Streamed |
| Cervical spine · T1 (site B) | MRI · T1 | Streamed |
| Neck · T2 (extension) | MRI · T2 | Streamed |
| Neck · T2 (flexion) | MRI · T2 | Streamed |
| Heart · Cardiac MRI | MRI · cardiac | Bundled |
| Pelvis · Prostate MRI (T2/ADC) | MRI · T2 + ADC | Bundled |
| Foot & ankle · MRI | MRI · T1 | Bundled |
Built with open source
- NiiVue — WebGL2 neuroimaging viewer for the live MRI rendering.
- Three.js + react-three-fiber — the Bloch simulator and 3D scanner.
- KaTeX — equation typesetting.
- Next.js, React and Tailwind CSS — the application.
Contributing
Corrections and contributions are welcome on GitHub. If you are an educator who wants to adapt this for a course, the MIT license lets you do so freely.