Functional Connectivity Disruption of Insular Subregions in the Cirrhotic Patients with Minimal Hepatic Encephalopathy

We investigated abnormal functional connectivity (FC) patterns of insular subregions in patients with minimal hepatic encephalopathy (MHE) and examined their relationships with cognitive dysfunction using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We collected resting-state fMRI data in 54 patients with cirrhosis [20 with MHE and 34 without MHE (NHE)] and 25 healthy controls. After defining six subregions of insula, we mapped whole-brain FC of the insular subregions and identified FC differences through three groups. FC of the insular subregions was correlated against clinical parameters (including venous blood ammonia level, Child-Pugh score, and cognitive score). The discrimination performance between the MHE and NHE groups was evaluated by performing a classification analysis using the FC index. Across three groups, the observed FC differences involved four insular subregions, including the left-ventral anterior insula, left-dorsal anterior insula, right-dorsal anterior insula, and left-posterior insula (P < 0.05 with false discovery rate correction). Moreover, the FC of these four insular subregions progressively attenuated from NHE to MHE. In addition, hypoconnectivity of insular subregions was correlated with the poor neuropsychological performance and the evaluated blood ammonia levels in patients (P < 0.05 with Bonferroni correction). The FC of insular subregions yielded moderate discriminative value between the MHE and NHE groups (AUC = 0.696–0.809). FC disruption of insular subregions is related to worse cognitive performance in MHE. This study extended our understanding about the neurophysiology of MHE and may assist for its diagnosis.