Faculty Opinions recommendation of The short-term effect of liver transplantation on the low-frequency fluctuation of brain activity in cirrhotic patients with and without overt hepatic encephalopathy.

AbstractNeurocognitive impairment is present in cirrhosis and may be more severe in cirrhosis with the overt hepatic encephalopathy (OHE). Liver transplantation (LT) may reverse the impaired brain function. MRI of resting-state functional connectivity can help unravel the underlying mechanisms that lead to these cognitive deficits and recovery. Sixty-four cirrhotic patients (28 with OHE; 36 without) and 32 healthy controls were recruited for resting-state fMRI. The patients were scanned before and after LT. We evaluated pre- and postsurgical neurocognitive performance in cirrhotic patients using psychomotor tests, i.e. number connection test (NCT) and digit symbol test (DST). Network-based statistics found significant disrupted connectivity in both groups of cirrhosis with OHE and without compared to controls. However, the presurgical connectivity disruption in patients with OHE was included in a greater number of connections than those without (65 vs. 17). The decrease in FC for both OHE and non-OHE patient groups was reversed to the level of controls after LT. An additional hyperconnected network (i.e., higher than controls) was observed in OHE patients after LT (p=0.009). Regarding the neural-behavior relationship, the functional network that predicted cognitive performance in healthy individuals, showed no correlation in presurgical cirrhotic patients. Such an impaired neural-behavior relationship was re-established after LT for non-OHE patients but not for OHE. OHE patients displayed abnormal hyperconnectivity and persistently impaired neural-behavior relationship after LT. Our results suggest that patients with OHE may undergo a different trajectory of postsurgical neurofunctional recovery in comparison to those without, which needs further clarification in the future study.

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Short-term effect of argon plasma coagulation on chronic blood loss due to portal hypertensive gastropathy in cirrhotic patients

Egyptian Liver Journal ◽

10.1097/01.elx.0000419584.92981.b0 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 2 (4) ◽

pp. 132-136

Author(s):

Maamoun M. Ashour ◽

Mubarak M. Hussien ◽

Ashraf M. Albreedy ◽

Ayman Rabee

Keyword(s):

Blood Loss ◽

Argon Plasma Coagulation ◽

Argon Plasma ◽

Term Effect ◽

Portal Hypertensive Gastropathy ◽

Short Term ◽

Plasma Coagulation ◽

Short Term Effect ◽

Cirrhotic Patients

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Reestablishing Brain Networks in Patients without Overt Hepatic Encephalopathy after Liver Transplantation

Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism ◽

10.1038/jcbfm.2014.143 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 34 (12) ◽

pp. 1877-1886 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Wei-Che Lin ◽

Tun-Wei Hsu ◽

Chao-Long Chen ◽

Cheng-Hsien Lu ◽

Hsiu-Ling Chen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Liver Transplantation ◽

Hepatic Encephalopathy ◽

Large Scale ◽

Brain Networks ◽

Functional Networks ◽

Healthy Controls ◽

Overt Hepatic Encephalopathy ◽

Cirrhotic Patients ◽

Information Processing Deficits ◽

Large Scale Networks

Cirrhotic patients without overt hepatic encephalopathy (HE) have associated with widespread neuro-psychological impairment. Liver transplantation can restore metabolic abnormalities but the mechanisms are unclear. We investigate brain functional networks after transplantation using resting-state funtional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Twenty-six cirrhotic patients without overt HE completed neuro-psychological assessment before and 6 to 12 months after transplantation, and compared with 35 healthy controls. Five major functional brain networks, default mode (DMN), dorsal attention (DAN), executive control (ECN), salience (SN), and primary networks (PN), were assessed. Nodal efficiency and strength in different functional networks were weighed and their interaction metrics displayed. Granger causal analysis between pretransplantation and posttransplantation was performed. Before transplantation, the intrafunctional connectivity was decreased in DMN, DAN, ECN, and SN. After transplantation, cognitive functions improved with increased functional connectivity. The interaction metrics among large-scale networks in patients became similar to healthy controls. The increase in PN affected the decrease in SN, while the increase in DAN forced a decrease in DMN. There was a bidirectional balance between DMN and SN. Dynamic disruptions and reconstruction in intrinsic large-scale networks are associated with parallel patterns of cognitive information processing deficits and recovery. Remapping of SN, DMN, and DAN is essential for restoring cognition after transplantation.

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A Newspaper’s Effect on the Strength of Automatic Associations in Memory

Journal of Media Psychology Theories Methods and Applications ◽

10.1027/1864-1105/a000057 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 24 (1) ◽

pp. 1-8 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Florian Arendt

Keyword(s):

Treatment Group ◽

Term Effect ◽

Control Group ◽

Implicit Measure ◽

Short Term ◽

Short Term Treatment ◽

Short Term Effect ◽

Automatic Associations ◽

Foreign Nationality ◽

The Impact

A test was done to see if reading a newspaper which consistently overrepresents foreigners as criminals strengthens the automatic association between foreign country and criminal in memory (i.e., implicit cultivation). Further, an investigation was done to find out if reading articles from the same newspaper produces a short-term effect on the same measure and if (1) emotionalization of the newspaper texts, (2) emotional reactions of the reader (indicated by arousal), and (3) attributed text credibility moderate the short-term treatment effect. Eighty-five participants were assigned to one of three experimental conditions. Participants in the control group received short factual crime texts, where the nationality of the offender was not mentioned. Participants in the factual treatment group received the same texts, but the foreign nationality was mentioned. Participants in the emotionalized treatment group received emotionalized articles (i.e., texts which are high in vividness and frequency) covering the same crimes, with the foreign nationality mentioned. Supporting empirical evidence for implicit cultivation and a short-term effect was found. However, only emotionalized articles produced a short-term effect on the strength of the automatic association, indicating that newspaper texts must have a minimum of stimulus intensity to overcome an effect threshold. There were no moderating effects of arousal or credibility pertaining to the impact on the implicit measure. However, credibility moderated the short-term effect on a first-order judgment (i.e., estimated frequency of foreigners of all criminals). This indicates that a newspaper’s effect on the strength of automatic associations is relatively independent from processes of propositional reasoning.

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