Congenital infections of the Central Nervous System

Abstract

Imaging studies play an essential role in evaluating patients with congenital central nervous system infections. Cerebral calcifications, hydrocephalus, are present mainly in toxoplasmosis and cytomegalovirus encephalopathy, being rare in rubella and absent in herpes simplex encephalitis; the calcifications are widely disseminated in toxoplasmosis and have a periventricular distribution in cytomegalovirus infection. Echoencephalography is very useful to show calcifications (periventricular and intraparenchymal), hydrocephalus and lenticulo striate vasculopathy. CT can be better than MRI showing calcifications, however, MRI demonstrates high signal intensity regions with T2 sequences before necrotic changes of encephalitis, and permits a sensitive assessment of brain maturation. We made a brief evaluation of the clinical findings and neuroimaging appearance of congenital central nervous system infections.