Brain Gray Matter Alterations in Hepatic Encephalopathy: A Voxel-Based Meta-Analysis of Whole-Brain Studies

作者：Licheng Zhu, Weihua Zhang, Lei Chen, Yanqiao Ren, Yanyan Cao, Tao Sun, Bo Sun, Jia Liu, Jing Wang, Chuansheng Zheng · 发表于：Frontiers in Human Neuroscience · 年份：2022 · DOI：10.3389/fnhum.2022.838666 · 被引用次数：15 · 研究领域：Liver Disease and Transplantation、Organ Transplantation Techniques and Outcomes、Neurological Complications and Syndromes

Background: Previous studies on voxel-based morphometry (VBM) have found that there were gray matter alterations in patients with hepatic encephalopathy (HE). However, the reported results were inconsistent and lack a quantitative review. Therefore, this study aims for a quantitative meta-analysis of VBM analysis on patients with HE. Methods: The studies in our meta-analysis were collected from Pubmed, Web of Science, and Embase, which were published from January 1947 to October 2021. The seed-based d mapping (SDM) method was applied to quantitatively estimate the regional gray matter abnormalities in patients with HE. A meta-regression analysis was applied to evaluate the relationship between plasma ammonia and gray matter alteration. Results: There were nine studies, with sixteen datasets consisting of 333 participants with HE and 429 healthy controls. The pooled and subgroup meta-analyses showed an increase in gray matter volume (GMV) in the bilateral thalamus and the calcarine fissure but a decrease in the GMV in the bilateral insula, the basal ganglia, the anterior cingulate gyrus, and the cerebellum. The meta-regression showed that plasma ammonia was positively associated with the GMV in the left thalamus but was negatively associated with the GMV in the cerebellum and the bilateral striatum. Conclusion: Gray matter volume in patients with HE largely varied and could be affected by plasma ammonia. The findings of this study could help us to better understand the pathoph...