We have witnessed major developments in MRI imaging in the last two decades. Stroke imaging is one of the main fields in which MRI has made dramatic contributions by furthering our understanding of this very common disease and its imaging characteristics.

Importantly, MRI stroke imaging has made an understanding of the cellular and molecular pathophysiology of this disease essential to radiologists in the process of disease diagnosis and treatment.

We will divide this subject into three parts:

1. Hemodynamic correlation
2. Metabolic correlation
3. Histopathologic correlation