The intent is to give relatively complete information about all of the important infectious diseases of the CNS without overwhelming detail. For purposes of organization, infections of the CNS can be divided into two broad categories - those which involve primarily the meninges , and those which are confined primarily to the parenchyma . These categories represent different types of inflammatory responses.
Many textbooks divide meningeal infections on the basis of the causative organism.
The advantage of categorization by inflammatory type is that it provides a more logical framework for relating the pathological findings to the causative organism. Other considerations in this section include complications and CSF findings in meningitis . The one exception to this approach is the topic of cerebral abscesses . However, certain fungi and parasites are also capable of producing an abscess. In addition, cerebral abscesses have several distinctive features both clinically and pathologically, regardless of the causative organism.