Only the foolhardy would hazard a guess as to what type of stroke research will be cutting edge during the first 50 years of "Y2K"! For example, who at the initiation of the past 50 years anticipated that aspirin, rat poison, or surgery could prevent some strokes, that ultrasonographic techniques developed for submarine detection would be adapted for human imaging, or that such innovative diagnostic tools as computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging would be developed and in routine use by the end of the century?