MAGNETIC-RESONANCE-IMAGING OF EXPERIMENTAL MICROINFARCTIONS IN THE RABBIT BRAIN

Small hyperintense lesions are frequently found with T-2-weighted magn etic resonance imaging (MRI) of the human brain. A significant number of these lesions are probably infarctions. Because there is often a lo ng delay between the microischemic impact and the autopsy, if any, and as the specificity of the MRI is low for detecting ischemic lesions, it is difficult to draw conclusions about the clinicotopographic corre lations. This work concerns the usefulness of MRI in detecting experim ental microischemic lesions in the rabbit brain about 24 h after the i mpact. It seems that the sensitivity of T-2-weighted MRI in detecting foci of damaged areas in the rabbit brain is good enough to make it us eful for evaluating tissue damage when screening for potential neuropr otective drugs and that the experimental model should be useful for de veloping diagnostically valuable MRI techniques. (C) 1997 Academic Pre ss.