spine_quantification_all_images.xlsx

Background: Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) is a reversible neuropsychiatric syndrome associated with acute and chronic liver diseases. It includes a number of neuropsychiatric disturbances including impaired motor activity and coordination, intellectual and cognitive function.Results: In the present study, we used a rat early-stage HE model by triple portal vein ligation for 50 days To gain a better understanding of the effect of HE on the brain, artificial intelligence algorithms based on convolutional neuronal networks were implemented for the unbiased quantification of the brain images which were stained by Golgi-Cox immunohistochemistry. Differences in spine density across the accumbens shell, core, and dorsal striatum were observed in the sham group, whereas no structural differences were found in the HE group. These changes were accompanied by a striatal increase in spine density in the HE group. It was suggested that the differential changes in dendritic spines across brain structures may be the underlying cause of the early-stage cognitive changes observed in clinical findings in cirrhosis.Conclusions: We found that HE perturbs central nervous functions by altering the spine density of striatal neurons, which may be the underlying cause for the early cognitive impairments associated with HE.