CT Brain Infection - Video Lesson

Hey everybody, welcome back. This lesson is about the brain infections that can be observed in CT imaging. We'll start with encephalitis. Encephalitis refers to inflammation of the brain matter called the parenchyma as a result of a viral infection, especially the herpes simplex virus. There are two aspects of this description that are very important to notice. First, encephalitis is specifically an infection as a result of a virus. Other pathogens can infect the brain, but those infections are given other names. A viral infection within the brain is called encephalitis. Secondly, it's important to remember that this infection is occurring in the brain matter, the parenchyma, not on the surface of the brain such as the meninges. They typically present as a poorly defined hypodense region. This patient is an example. We can see a subtle area of hypodensity in the left temporal lobe. Why do we suspect an infection and not a stroke or something else? The other clinical