New therapeutical approaches require neuroradiological description of cerebral infarcts under pathogenetical aspects. Knowledge of the pathophysiological concepts of arterial cerebral vessel disease is necessary. These concepts are described in the first part of this paper. The relation between neuropathologic and radiologic findings and the different patterns and pathomechanisms or cerebral infarction are reported. In the second part of this paper typical CT- and MRI-findings are described and the differential diagnosis of cerebral infarcts are discussed.