The patient was hypertensive, and presented for CT (which was negative) with acute hypoesthesia involving the left side of the body. The MR was obtained 15 hours later, and reveals a small acute lacunar infarct in the internal capsule on the right. Due to the ability to detect cytotoxic edema, with diffusion weighted imaging, MR can detect even very small infarcts within 15 minutes of clinical symptomatology.

Part of the on-line supplement to Neuroradiology – The Essentials with MR and CT (© 2015)