Problem areas in postmortem imaging of the brain

Postmortem imaging notably CT, has been embraced in medicolegal death investigation. It allows for non-invasive interrogation of the skull and cranial contents prior to autopsy, forewarning likely findings excluding overt pathology such as fractures, haemorrhage, mass lesions. There are, however, deficiencies postmortem CT part due changes brain at or after death, inherent insensitivity subtle parenchyma early infarction, encephalitis, low-grade neoplasm. This can be rectified by use MRI. As clinical evaluation, MRI assist pathologists understanding cause mechanism injury disease that may not initially apparent. Examples will discussed include: impact cerebral amyloid angiopathy traumatic haemorrhage; rupture vessels other than vertebral artery basal subarachnoid venous extradural haematoma; relative contribution natural trauma fatal haemorrhage (so-called chicken v egg); underlying cases prolonged hospital stay, hypoxic ischaemic status post neurosurgery, way forensic interpretation (antemortem) imaging.