Pitch Processing Can Indicate Cognitive Alterations in Chronic Liver Disease: An fNIRS Study

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Hepatology
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Cognitive impairment is a significant complication in chronic liver disease (CLD), often preceding hepatic encephalopathy.
• Current cognitive assessments in CLD primarily rely on visuomotor tasks, with limited focus on auditory processing.
• Early and accurate cognitive evaluation is vital for disease management and prognosis.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the utility of an auditory perception task, the melodic contour identification task (CIT), for assessing cognitive function in patients with CLD.
• To compare behavioral and hemodynamic responses to CIT between CLD patients and healthy controls.
• To identify optimal functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) channels for classifying cognitive alterations in CLD using machine learning.

Main Methods:

• A melodic contour identification task (CIT) was administered to 30 patients with CLD and 25 healthy controls.
• Behavioral performance on CIT and standard neurocognitive tests were recorded.
• Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) measured hemodynamic responses during CIT.
• Support vector machines (SVM) were employed to analyze fNIRS data and classify cognitive status.

Main Results:

• Patients with CLD demonstrated significantly poorer performance on the CIT compared to healthy controls.
• CIT performance showed significant correlations with established neurocognitive tests (Number Connection Test, Digit Span Test).
• Machine learning analysis of fNIRS data achieved 78.35% classification accuracy for cognitive alterations, highlighting prefrontal regions (CH6, CH7, CH10, CH13, CH14, CH16).

Conclusions:

• The melodic contour identification task (CIT) effectively measures auditory cognitive capacity and differentiates between CLD patients and healthy individuals.
• Both behavioral and hemodynamic responses to music perception tasks can serve as valuable tools for evaluating cognitive alterations in CLD.
• This study supports the potential of auditory-based assessments as a supplementary method for early detection of cognitive impairment in chronic liver disease.