Structural Brain Differences between Patients with Non Hepatic Liver Cirrhosis & HCV-Patients Without Liver Cirrhosis

Peter Raab¹, Kathrin S. Blum¹, Anita B. Tryc², Annemarie Goldbecker², Ali Tabesh³, Heinrich Lanfermann¹, Karin Weienborn²

Neuropsychological impairments in liver disease often present as deficits in attention, memory and higher executive function. Different liver diseases like HCV infection as well as liver cirrhosis can lead to similar symptoms. Diffusion Kurtosis Imaging and 1H-MR-Spectroscopy were used to look for structural brain differences in these two types of liver disease, compared to normal data. The results for cirrhosis patients are consistent with increased water content due to the altered ammonia metabolism, whereas in HCV patients results indicate consistency with the idea of increased microglial activation in the basal ganglia due to the known brain invasion by the hepatitis-C-virus.