Hypoxic-ischemic brain injury is a diagnostic term that encompasses a complex constellation of pathophysiological and molecular injuries to the brain induced by hypoxia, ischemia, cytotoxicity, or combinations of these conditions.

Typical causes includes cardiac arrest, respiratory arrest, drowning, hanging, and other forms of incomplete suffocation or carbon monoxide and other poisonous gas exposures and/or severely diminished blood supply. 

The diffuse abnormality might be difficult to detect and history is key to suspecting the bilateral and symmetric pattern.