Pathogenesis of hepatic encephalopathy: potential future approaches

Attempting to forecast future trends in research is difficult enough in any area but is well nigh impossible with the volatile field of hepatic encephalopathy (HE). Undaunted in this review it is suggested that more frequent use of intact animal models of HE to probe the pathogenesis of HE will occur with newly developed pharmacological agents. This process would be greatly facilitated by wide acceptance of a discrete number of reproducible animal models of this syndrome. Brief comments are made on the current status on some of the current hypotheses. Greater utilization of patients with subclinical HE for clinical studies will occur. Continuing interest in nuclear magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy findings peculiar to HE will be seen over the next decade.