It is the undiscovered country, at least as far as magnetic resonance imaging is concerned: the human spinal cord. Although the spinal cord can hardly be overestimated as a major ‘motorway’ for the transmission of nerve impulses (together with the brain), there are hardly any standardised sequences and procedures for imaging the spinal cord. Thus, the 17th Erwin L. Hahn Lecture & Workshop entitled ‘Brain & Spine: The Next Frontier’ dedicated a whole day on the interaction between the brain and the spinal cord and the possibilities for imaging, particularly in ultra-high-field magnetic resonance imaging (UHF MRI).

The importance of this topic was demonstrated above all by the lively interest in the Erwin L. Hahn Lecture & Workshop: Late registrations were hardly possible this year, as the event room was fully booked, and the number of online viewers was also considerable at 270 people.

Spanning three sessions, national and international scientists addressed the question of how the brain and spinal cord interact, including in anxiety and pain inducing situations. The technical challenges of imaging were also discussed.

The highlight of the programme was the keynote by Virginie Callot from the Center for Magnetic Resonance in Biology and Medicine at Aix-Marseille Université, who spoke about ‘Spinal Cord MRI at Ultra-High Field: Where are we now?’ and provided fascinating insights into her research.

 Fun fact: Signe Johanna Vannesjö had by far the longest journey, travelling all the way from Trondheim in Norway for her talk ‘Levelling the field in spinal cord MRI: B0 homogeneity and stability’.

New this year was the Data Blitz Session, in which scientists were given the opportunity to present their latest results in five-minute short talks, which could be further explained during the subsequent Poster Walk.

This year, the Erwin L. Hahn Institute Award for Young Scientists went to Tobias Spronk for his doctoral thesis ‘Simulations and measurements of implant-induced artifacts in magnetic resonance imaging’. The International Erwin L. Hahn Institute Award went to Simon Schmidt from the University of Minnesota for his publication ‘Improved 1H body imaging at 10.5 T: Validation and VOP-enabled imaging in vivo with a 16-channel transceiver dipole array’.

We would like to thank all participants and speakers for a great, successful event and look forward to the next Erwin L. Hahn Lecture & Workshop in 2025!