Brain Protection Effect of Selective Head Cooling and Dexmedetomidine in Patients Undergoing Liver Transplantation

Inclusion Criteria: * Scheduled for OLT, selected from the Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China. * Sign the informed consent Exclusion Criteria: * The patients with a history of neurological or psychiatric disorders which impair cognitive processes, including previously established de-mentia, stroke, schizophrenia and depression were excluded from the study. * Patients diagnosed with hepatic encephalopathy or had a low Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) score (below 24) preoperatively. * With concurrent diseases such as renal insufficiency, diabetes mellitus were also excluded. * Patients were excluded if severe reperfusion syn-drome (mean arterial pressure below 60mmHg sustained over 15minutes) occurred perioperatively.