Brain Imaging for Stroke

Brain imaging (neuroradiology) is a subspecialty of radiology. Benefiting from the newly emerging radiological techniques, neuroradiology has greatly broadened our understanding on diagnosis, characterization, and mechanism of central nervous diseases, especially stroke. Brain reperfusion therapy is the most convincing treatment in acute ischemic stroke. It is of great importance to prudently select patients potentially benefiting from reperfusion therapy and minimize reperfusion injuries, not only in clinical practice but also in demanding insights from basic research. Neuroradiology is thereby a bridge translating basic research results to clinical applications, and clinical neuroradiological findings could in turn help to apprehend underlying disease mechanism. In this chapter, we are going to discuss the main neuroradiological advances on translational research in stroke. Firstly, we introduce basic radiological methods and techniques for stroke research briefly. Then, we discuss the core concept in stroke imaging: penumbra and collateral vessel imaging, which are important characteristics in patient selection for reperfusion therapy. Finally, we talk about the reperfusion injury and introduce some useful radiological markers.