Diagnosing infection of the CNS with MRI

Abstract

MRI is an important tool in the diagnosis of CNS infections. It allows for identifying various infectious patterns, differentiates them from vascular pathologies or neoplasms, may raise suspicion about a specific pathogen agent and plays an important role in monitoring response to treatment. Recent advances in MRI (e.g., diffusion-weighted imaging and diffusion-tensor imaging, MR spectroscopy, susceptibility-weighted imaging and perfusion-weighted imaging) may further improve the specificity of the MR findings.