Abstract: Stroke causes permanent neurological damage and death and badly endangers human's life and health. Ischemic stroke with the pathological basis of atherosclerotic lesions is the major type of stroke. Thus, early and timely detection of plaque vulnerability has become more and more important. As a noninvasive examination, carotid magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has tremendous advantages on detecting the characteristics of atherosclerotic plaque, such as high sensitivity and specificity on the plaque morphology and composition as well as hierarchical evaluation on the risk of plaque rupture, and furthermore provides significant imaging support on clinical treatments.

Key words: Brain ischemia, Atherosclerosis, Carotid artery diseases, Magnetic resonance imaging

摘要： 脑卒中是严重危害人类生命健康的主要疾病之一，而以动脉粥样硬化性病变为病理基础的缺血性卒中为其最常见的临床发病类型。因此，及时识别粥样硬化斑块易损性即显得愈发重要。颈动脉MRI作为一项无创性检查手段，对动脉粥样硬化斑块性质的检测具有独特优势，对显示斑块形态和成分具有较高的敏感性和特异性，可以对粥样硬化斑块破裂的潜在危险进行评价和分层，进而为临床制定有效治疗方案提供影像学诊断依据。

关键词: 脑缺血, 动脉粥样硬化, 颈动脉疾病, 磁共振成像