Nadim Jon
Shah1,2, Vincent Gras1, Anna-Maria Oros-Peusquens1,
Eberhard Daniel Pracht1, Sandro Romanzetti1, Gerald
Kircheis3, Dieter Hussinger3
1Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine
4, Medical Imaging Physics, Forschungszentrum Jlich GmbH, Jlich, Germany; 2Faculty
of Medicine, Department of Neurology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen,
Germany; 3Klinik f. Gastroenterologie, Hepatologie und
Infektiologie, Universittsklinikum Dsseldorf, Dsseldorf, Germany
Sodium
MRI provides an new tool for the analysis of mechanisms involved in hepatic
encephalopathy (HE), a neuropsychiatric complication of liver failure.
Hyperintense regions observed in the basal ganglia in proton images of HE
patients are expected to show changes in sodium images due to the involvement
of hyponatraemia in HE. Using sodium MRI, expected subtle changes are
investigated using the structural information - delineation of structures of
interest - provided by anatomical MR images. Based on the analysis of a large
group of patients versus controls, this research potentially provides novel,
valuable information concerning metabolic changes in HE.
Keywords