The first MR images of a human brain were obtained in 1978 by two groups of researchers at EMI Laboratories led by Ian Robert Young and Hugh Clow.

[1] In 1986, Charles L. Dumoulin and Howard R. Hart at General Electric developed MR angiography,[2] and Denis Le Bihan obtained the first images and later patented diffusion MRI.

In the early 1990s, Peter Basser and Le Bihan, working at NIH, and Aaron Filler, Franklyn Howe, and colleagues developed diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).

[16] Paul Lauterbur and Sir Peter Mansfield were awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerning MRI.The record for the highest spatial resolution of a whole intact brain (postmortem) is 100 microns, from Massachusetts General Hospital.

[22] In the analysis of a concussion, measurements of Fractional Anisotropy, Mean Diffusivity, Cerebral Blood Flow, and Global Connectivity can be taken to observe the pathophysiological mechanisms being made while in recovery.