Radiculopathy is usually a mechanical or inflammatory compression of a nerve root and it can lead to loss of motor and sensory nerve functions. The diagnosis is clinical and imaging is necessary to confirm whether it is a symptomatic acute disc pathology or due to degenerative processes involving vertebral soma, hooked processes and interapophyseal joints. Imaging can provide useful information to distinguish a degenerative joint pathology from a disc pathology and establish whether this may be symptomatic or not. MRI is the only investigational technique for the study of disc pathology, while traditional radiology and computed tomography are better able to highlight the degenerative aspects of joint degeneration.