Read Your Own Spine MRI Series with AI Support

What a Lumbar or Cervical Series Actually Contains

A standard spine study is built from a handful of purpose-built stacks rather than one uniform volume. A sagittal T2 sequence runs the full length of the imaged segment in a single stack — it is what you use to judge disc hydration (a bright, water-rich nucleus versus a dark, desiccated one), the width of the spinal canal, and whether one vertebral body has slipped against the next. A sagittal T1 stack covers the same range and is read mainly for vertebral marrow — normal fatty marrow reads bright, while a fracture, infection, or metastasis replaces that brightness with darker signal. A STIR, or fat-saturated T2, sagittal stack suppresses marrow fat so that oedema and an acute fracture line stand out as bright regions that would otherwise be masked. Layered on top of those three long sagittal stacks are several short axial stacks, usually one per disc level, each individually angled parallel to that one disc space rather than continuing straight through the spine.

Spine Conditions on MRI

How It Works

Matching the Viewer to a Report That Says L4-L5 or C5-C6

Radiology reports describe spine findings by disc level, not by slice number, so the fastest way to get oriented is to work the same way the report does. Start on the midline sagittal T2 slice — the one where the spinous processes line up in profile — and count vertebral bodies down from a fixed landmark, such as the sacrum for a lumbar study or C2 for a cervical one. Each disc space between two numbered bodies has a name: L4-L5, L5-S1, C5-C6, and so on. Once you know which disc the report is discussing, jump from the sagittal stack into the short axial stack acquired for that specific level — the series description or slice location in the DICOM header usually identifies which axial stack belongs to which disc — and step through it left and right to see the same finding the report flagged from the transverse view.

Why a Spine Study Won't Reformat Into One 3D Volume Like a CT

What the Viewer Lets You Do With a Spine Study

Because a spine study is really a set of stacks rather than one volume, the viewer treats each stack as its own scrollable series. You can move slice by slice through the long sagittal T2 or T1 stack with the arrow keys, then switch directly into whichever short axial stack corresponds to the disc level you are examining, without losing your place in the sagittal view. Windowing and leveling let you push contrast toward bone detail for a suspected fracture or toward soft tissue for disc and nerve assessment. The measurement tool works directly in millimetres, so you can mark the anteroposterior width of the canal or the height of a neural foramen instead of estimating it by eye. If you have an older spine MRI on file, you can open both studies and step through the same disc level in each to see whether a stenosis or a disc bulge has changed.

Locating the Nerve Root, Lateral Recess, and Foramen on an Axial Slice

On an axial slice through a lumbar disc level, the thecal sac sits centrally inside the spinal canal, bounded by the vertebral body in front and the lamina and ligamentum flavum behind. Just off to each side of the sac, in the space called the lateral recess, the traversing nerve root separates from the sac before it curves outward. Farther laterally, between the pedicles of the two vertebrae that form the level, sits the neural foramen — the exit tunnel where the nerve root leaves the canal, and the structure that narrows first when a disc bulges posterolaterally or a facet joint hypertrophies. Reading these three landmarks together — central canal, lateral recess, and foramen — is what lets a single axial slice tell you whether a finding is central, subarticular, or foraminal, which is exactly the language a spine radiology report uses to localize a herniation or stenosis.

Using AI to Prepare Questions About a Spine Report

AI support in this app reads the rendered images and any text you provide and explains what terms like central stenosis, foraminal narrowing, or a Modic change generally mean — it is not a radiologist's read and does not replace one. Where it helps most is turning a dense spine report into questions you can bring to your surgeon or physiatrist: which level is driving your symptoms, whether the finding matches your pain distribution, and whether the next step is conservative care or further imaging.

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