It would be in terms of a neurodegenerative state that involves the cell as a series of pathway events that there would arise a further specific characterization of neuronal injury that finally resolves as irreversible transformation of such injury. Oxidative stress injury is a final common pathway event that paradoxically is initiated intraneuronally but that progresses largely as a microglially-mediated series of injuries to the neuron. The recognized validity of the use of the term neurodegeneration might derive from essential recognition of various stages in the injury to neurons that finally proves irreversible in terms of reactive oxidative stress. Neuroinflammation may thus arise as a second stage in the evolution of a given neurodegenerative state that would finally determine transformation to irreversible cell-death pathways. The specific recognition of any given neurodegenerative state might also be in terms of how neurons do actually transform with regard to injury induced by a final common endpathway of oxidative stress.