%0 Journal Article
%A Winterdahl, Michael
%A Abbas, Zaheer
%A Noer, Ove
%A Thomsen, Karen Louise
%A Gras, Vincent
%A Nahimi, Adjmal
%A Vilstrup, Hendrik
%A Shah, Nadim Joni
%A Dam, Gitte
%T Cerebral water content mapping in cirrhosis patients with and without manifest HE
%J Metabolic brain disease
%V 34
%N 4
%@ 1573-7365
%C Dordrecht [u.a.]
%I Springer Science + Business Media B.V
%M FZJ-2019-05720
%P 1071 - 1076
%D 2019
%X Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) is a frequent and debilitating complication of cirrhosis and its pathogenesis is not definitively clarified. Recent hypotheses focus on the possible existence of low-grade cerebral edema due to accumulation of osmolytes secondary to hyperammonemia. In the present study we investigated increases in cerebral water content by a novel magnetic resonance impedance (MRI) technique in cirrhosis patients with and without clinically manifest HE. We used a 3 T MRI technique for quantitative cerebral water content mapping in nine cirrhosis patients with an episode of overt HE, ten cirrhosis patients who never suffered from HE, and ten healthy aged-matched controls. We tested for differences between groups by statistical non-parametric mapping (SnPM) for a voxel-based spatial evaluation. The patients with HE had significantly higher water content in white matter than the cirrhosis patients (0.6%), who in turn, had significantly higher content than the controls (1.7%). Although the global gray matter water content did not differ between the groups, the patients with HE had markedly higher thalamic water content than patients who never experienced HE (6.0% higher). We found increased white matter water content in cirrhosis patients, predominantly in those with manifest HE. This confirms the presence of increasing degrees of low-grade edema with exacerbation of pathology. The thalamic edema in manifest HE may lead to compromised basal ganglia-thalamo-cortical circuits, in accordance with the major clinical symptoms of HE. The identification of the thalamus as particularly inflicted in manifest HE is potentially relevant to the pathophysiology of HE.
%F PUB:(DE-HGF)16
%9 Journal Article
%$ pmid:31089866
%U <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000475697800012
%R 10.1007/s11011-019-00427-y
%U https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/866641