Lumbar MRI: What It Shows & What to Expect

Question
I am having an MRI of my back,the lumbar region.
What will that MRI pick up?
If there are other parts of my body in that area will they show up also.


Thanks

Answer
MRI is very good at differentiating tissues, even if they are the same basic density, which would be missed on cat scan or plain xrays... so it shows the disk detail, bone detail, nerve detail, etc.  Other parts of the body would show up, but there isn't much in that area other than connective tissue, muscle and bone.