Posterior circulation infarction: anatomy, pathophysiology, and clinical correlation.

Posterior circulation cerebrovascular disease may be responsible for clinical syndromes that are determined by the vascular territory affected. An anatomic/topographic approach to the brain stem and cerebellum, relating the cross-sectional and functional anatomy to the vascular supply territories, is useful in the analysis of imaging studies of patients with posterior circulation cerebrovascular disease. Knowledge of the typical vascular distributions may be particularly useful for cases that do not show the classical clinical brain stem and cerebellar infarction syndromes. This approach may serve to improve our understanding of cerebrovascular disease in the posterior fossa.