Abstract: Objectives To investigate the connection changes between bilateral paleness and whole brain network in patients with hepatic encephalopathy（HE）. Methods 28 patients with overt HE（OHE）,30 with minimal HE（MHE） and 30 healthy volunteers were recruited in our hospital between February 2015 and June 2017,and all of them received resting blood oxygenation level-dependent functional MRI（BOLD-fMRI） scan,and the bilateral globus pallidus was selected as the seed point and the whole brain function was connected. The functional MR data were analyzed to observe the differences among the brain functional network connections in the bilateral globus pallidus regions. Results The differences among the globus pallidus and the whole brain network in most patients with HE were located in the frontal,parietal and temporal lobes（P<0.05）;the connection of the right side occipital gyrus,the right frontal gyrus and the left orbital frontal gyrus to the brain network in patients with OHE decreased,while the connection of the left central gyrus,the bilateral tail nucleus and the left triangle part increased as compared with in healthy persons;the connection of right wedge anterior lobe,right temporal gyrus,right fusiform gyrus,and right angle decreased,while the connection of bilateral tail nucleus and right temporal gyrus enhanced as compared with the patients with MHE（P<0.05）. Conclusion The functional connections among the bilateral globus pallidus and multiple brain regions were impaired in the patients with HE and it is assumed that the cognitive dysfunctions in these patients might be related to the functional connection disorders.

Key words: Hepatic encephalopathy, Magnetic resonance imaging, Globus pallidi, Functional connection