Intracranial lesions which show high signal on DWI

The following intracranial lesions may show high signal on diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI):

• lesions with intense high signal
  • acute ischemia
  • meningiomas
  • abscess
  • empyema
  • cytotoxic cerebral edema
  • chordoma
  • intracranial epidermoid cyst
  • CJD 
• lesions with variable or moderately high signal
  • primary central nervous system vasculitis
  • primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL)
  • hemangiopericytoma 
  • CADASIL
  • primitive neuroectodermal tumor (PNET)
  • meningiomas
  • medulloblastoma
  • intracranial germinoma 
  • pineoblastoma
  • choroid plexus cyst
  • X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy 
  • kuru 
  • carbon monoxide poisoning
  • methanol poisoning
  • Wernicke encephalopathy
  • hyperammonemia
  • deep cerebral vein thrombosis
  • Canavan disease 
  • Japanese encephalitis
  • Wallerian degeneration (acute, late acute)
  • inborn errors of metabolism such as
    • maple syrup urine disease
    • non-ketotic hyperglycemia
    • methylmalonic aciduria
    • glutaric aciduria type I
    • Wilson disease

The interpretation of hyper- or hypo-intensity on diffusion-weighted images requires correlation with apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) maps and T2-weighted images.