This book is designed to improve the teaching and learning medicine in postgraduate educational pro-grams. It is targeted at “beginning specialists”, either medical students with a deeper interest or medical doctors entering the field of specialized stroke care. Therefore the text contains what is considered essential for this readership but, in addition, goes into much greater depth. The book benefits from the experience of many specialized authors, thereby providing expert coverage of the various topics by international authorities in the field. In places this leads to some differences of opinion in the approach to particular patients or conditions; e.g. on genetics or rarer forms of diseases.