Until resonance neurography arrived, there was no reliable way to see nerves other than by surgery or by studying human cadaveric specimens. "Arrival" is really the right term, because technology has emerged from nowhere to a thousand miles per hour almost overnight; Early human images revealed spectacular details about the internal structure and pattern of injuries that had never been seen before. The media fast spread the story; The finding was published in Lancet, the international medical journal of record, along with the New York Times and ABC News.

Nerves can take curves, complex courses through the human body. Because of this, it is important to "remove" everything else from an image to provide to a doctor a clear description of a patient's condition. Magnetic resonance scanners produce a series of human body images that resemble "slices" - useful for viewing many internal organs and structures. However, nerves typically travel through the slices, it is the medical imaging equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack.

Resonance neurography represents the nerve as the brightest structure of an image. This makes it easier for doctors to "remove" everything else from the image and follow complex three-dimensional structures of nerve trees through a series of "slices" of MRI images. This information, in turn, allows doctors to properly diagnose and treat the nerves.