Demographics and clinical data of cirrhotic patients and healthy controls.

Values are expressed as mean ±SD. MHE = minimal hepatic encephalopathy; DST = digital symbol test; NCT-A = number connection test-A; Non-HE = non-hepatic encephalopathy.aThe P value for gender distribution in the three groups was obtained by chi-square test.bThe P value for age distribution in the three groups was obtained by one-way analysis of variance test.cThe P value for difference of the neuropsychological test scores among the three groups was obtained by one-way analysis of variance test.dThe P value for difference of venous blood ammonia between the two groups was obtained by two-sample t test.