Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) is a severe and frequent complication of liver cirrhosis characterized by abnormal cerebral function. Little is known about the underlying neural mechanisms in HE and human data are sparse. Electrophysiological methods such as evoked brain potentials after somatic stimuli can be combined with inverse modeling of the underlying brain activity. Thereby, information on neuronal dynamics and brain activity can be studied in vivo. The aim of this study was to investigate the sensory brain processing in patients with HE.
Twelve patients with minimal or overt HE and 26 healthy volunteers were included in the study. Cerebral sensory processing was investigated as (i) an auditory reaction time task; (ii) visual and somatosensory evoked brain potentials, and (iii) reconstruction of the underlying brain activity.
Somatosensory evoked potentials were reproducible (all P>0.05), whereas flash evoked potentials were not reproducible (all P