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Microstructural brain abnormalities correlate with neurocognitive dysfunction in minimal hepatic encephalopathy: a diffusion kurtosis imaging study

  • Functional Neuroradiology
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Abstract

Purpose

To investigate the diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) in early minimal hepatic encephalopathy (MHE) diagnosis and evaluate the correlations between changes in DKI metrics and cognitive performance.

Methods

We enrolled 116 cirrhosis patients, divided into non-HE (n = 61) and MHE (n = 55), and 46 normal controls (NCs). All patients underwent cognitive testing before magnetic resonance imaging. DKI metrics were calculated through whole-brain voxel-based analysis (VBA) and differences between the groups were assessed. Pearson correlation between the DKI metrics and cognitive performance was analysed. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to analyse the diagnostic efficiency of DKI metrics for MHE.

Results

MHE patients had significantly altered DKI metrics in a wide range of regions; lower fractional anisotropy (FA) and higher mean diffusivity (MD) are mainly located in the corpus callosum, left temporal white matter (WM), and right medial frontal WM. Furthermore, significantly altered kurtosis metrics included lower mean kurtosis (MK) in the corpus callosum and left thalamus, lower radial kurtosis (RK) in the corpus callosum, and lower axial kurtosis (AK) in the right anterior thalamic radiation. Alterations in axial diffusivity (AD), radial diffusivity (RD), and MD were closely correlated with cognitive scores. The ROC curves indicated AD in the forceps minor had the highest predictive performance for MHE in the cirrhosis patients (area under curve = 0.801, sensitivity = 77.05%, specificity = 74.55%).

Conclusions

Altered DKI metrics indicate brain microstructure abnormalities in MHE patients, some of which may be used as neuroimaging markers for early MHE diagnosis.

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Abbreviations

AD:

Axial diffusivity

AK:

Axial kurtosis

AUC:

Area under a curve

DKI:

Diffusion kurtosis imaging

FA:

Fractional anisotropy

HE:

Hepatic encephalopathy

MD:

Mean diffusivity

MHE:

Minimal HE

MK:

Mean kurtosis

OHE:

Overt HE

RD:

Radial diffusivity

RK:

Radial kurtosis

ROC:

Receiver operating characteristic

VBA:

Voxel-based analysis

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Funding

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81601482 to YC and No. 81701679 to XDZ).

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Author notes

  1. J-LL and HJ contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology, Tianjin First Central Hospital, Tianjin, 300192, China

    Jing-Li Li, Xiao-Dong Zhang, Li-Xiang Huang, Shuang-Shuang Xie, Yue Cheng & Wen Shen

  2. Department of Oncology, Western Theater Command Air Force Hospital of PLA, Chengdu, 610021, China

    Heng Jiang

  3. Department of Transplantation Surgery, Tianjin First Central Hospital, Tianjin, 300192, China

    Li Zhang

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  1. Jing-Li Li
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  2. Heng Jiang
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  6. Li Zhang
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Correspondence to Yue Cheng or Wen Shen.

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All procedures performed in our studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the medical research committee and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Li, JL., Jiang, H., Zhang, XD. et al. Microstructural brain abnormalities correlate with neurocognitive dysfunction in minimal hepatic encephalopathy: a diffusion kurtosis imaging study. Neuroradiology 61, 685–694 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00234-019-02201-4

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