The point-of-care Swoop® portable MRI camera can successfully map early brain growth and detect clinical abnormalities, while providing important developmental data without the extensive cost and infrastructure required for traditional MRI systems. This makes pediatric neuroimaging available to more children worldwide.

Lioness Medtech, Nordic distributor of the Hyperfine Swoop® portable MRI camera, today announced that recently published, peer-reviewed research validates the portable MRI system as an accurate tool for tracking infants’ brain development.

The study, miniMORPH: A Morphometry Pipeline for Low-Field MRI in Infants, published in Human Brain Mapping, shows that the point-of-care Swoop® system can successfully map early brain growth and detect clinical abnormalities. The system can thus provide important development data without the extensive costs and infrastructure required for traditional MRI systems.

Historically, research on infant brain development and early neurological diagnostics has been largely limited to high-income regions due to the high costs and extensive infrastructure requirements of high-field MRIs. The 0.064 T ultra-low field camera Swoop® has reduced existing barriers by bringing MRI directly to the patient’s bedside, without the need for extensive infrastructure. Existing neuroimaging software tools, on the other hand, have had more difficulty interpreting the lower-contrast images that occur when examining infants’ developing brains.

The miniMORPH study, led by Chiara Casella and researchers at King’s College London, is now bridging this gap. The researchers developed and tested an open-source analysis method specifically adapted for pediatric images from 0.064 T systems and showed that portable ultra-low-field MRI can effectively map infants’ brain growth and detect clinical abnormalities.

“This is a major step forward for global health equity and pediatric neurology,” says Bernt Nordin, Managing Director at Lioness Medtech. “Hyperfine Swoop® originally broke the physical and economic barriers to MRI imaging of the brain. With the validation of the miniMORPH method, there is now evidence that clinicians and researchers around the world can use these portable MRI systems to access highly accurate, clinical-grade data on brain development.” (Translated from English)

Visualization of early brain development right at the patient’s bedside: Brain segmentation generated by the open-source miniMORPH method with T2-weighted ultra-low-field images (0.064 T) from a portable Hyperfine Swoop® system. The software delineates with high accuracy major brain tissues and complex anatomical substructures into sagittal, coronal and axial planes, demonstrating that clinical-grade developmental data can be extracted without high-field MRI infrastructure. (Image source: Casella et al., Human Brain Mapping, 2026.)

The study analyzed infants aged 2–27 months from cohorts in South Africa and Uganda. Key findings demonstrating the usefulness of the Hyperfine Swoop® system include:

• Anatomical precision: The system was able to successfully and reliably map major brain regions and generate accurate volume data for gray matter, white matter, and cerebrospinal fluid.
• Follow-up of development: The portable MRI scans were able to accurately capture the expected age-related development curves of brain growth during the critical first two years of life.
• Clinical sensitivity: The ultra-low-field studies were sensitive enough to detect decreased regional brain volumes and altered growth trajectories in infants born with low birth weight.

For healthcare providers, global health initiatives, and regional hospitals, this validation confirms that Hyperfine Swoop® is not only a tool for rapid and easily accessible neuroimaging, but also a robust instrument for comprehensive monitoring of neurological development. The system plugs into a standard wall socket, can be rolled directly to a cot or patient bed, and requires only a fraction of the investment compared to conventional MRI systems.

Reference: To read the full peer-reviewed study miniMORPH: A Morphometry Pipeline for Low-Field MRI in Infants, see:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hbm.70547