[Infectious diseases of brain parenchyma in adults: imaging and differential diagnosis aspects]

Abstract

Infectious diseases of the central nervous system have often to be considered in differential diagnosis, particularly in immunocompromised persons. Neuroimaging, specifically advanced techniques such as diffusion-weighted MRI and perfusion MRI contribute much to the differentiation of various brain infections and to delineation of brain infections from other, for instance, neoplastic diseases. In this review we present the imaging criteria for the most important brain infections in adults and discuss in detail differential diagnostic aspects.