Aberrant Topological Patterns of Structural Cortical Networks in Psychogenic Erectile Dysfunction

Male sexual arousal (SA) has been known as a multidimensional experience involving closely interrelated and coordinated neurobehavioral components that rely on widespread brain regions. Recent functional neuroimaging studies have shown relation between abnormal/altered dynamics in these circuits and...

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Main Authors:	Zhao, Lu, Guan, Min, Zhu, Xiaobo, Karama, Sherif, Khundrakpam, Budhachandra, Wang, Meiyun, Dong, Minghao, Qin, Wei, Tian, Jie, Evans, Alan C., Shi, Dapeng
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Frontiers Media S.A. 2015
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4683194/

id	pubmed-4683194
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-46831942016-01-05 Aberrant Topological Patterns of Structural Cortical Networks in Psychogenic Erectile Dysfunction Zhao, Lu Guan, Min Zhu, Xiaobo Karama, Sherif Khundrakpam, Budhachandra Wang, Meiyun Dong, Minghao Qin, Wei Tian, Jie Evans, Alan C. Shi, Dapeng Neuroscience Male sexual arousal (SA) has been known as a multidimensional experience involving closely interrelated and coordinated neurobehavioral components that rely on widespread brain regions. Recent functional neuroimaging studies have shown relation between abnormal/altered dynamics in these circuits and male sexual dysfunction. However, alterations in the topological1 organization of structural brain networks in male sexual dysfunction are still unclear. Here, we used graph theory2 to investigate the topological properties of large-scale structural brain networks, which were constructed using inter-regional correlations of cortical thickness between 78 cortical regions in 40 patients with psychogenic erectile dysfunction (pED) and 39 normal controls. Compared with normal controls, pED patients exhibited a less optimal global topological organization with reduced global and increased local efficiencies. Our results suggest disrupted neural integration among distant brain regions in pED patients, consistent with previous reports of impaired white matter structure and abnormal functional integrity in pED. Additionally, disrupted global network topology in pED was observed to be primarily relevant to altered subnetwork and nodal properties within the networks mediating the cognitive, motivational and inhibitory processes of male SA, possibly indicating disrupted integration of these networks in the whole brain networks and might account for pED patients' abnormal cognitive, motivational and inhibitory processes for male SA. In total, our findings provide evidence for disrupted integrity in large-scale brain networks underlying the neurobehavioral processes of male SA in pED and provide new insights into the understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms of pED. Frontiers Media S.A. 2015-12-18 /pmc/articles/PMC4683194/ /pubmed/26733849 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00675 Text en Copyright © 2015 Zhao, Guan, Zhu, Karama, Khundrakpam, Wang, Dong, Qin, Tian, Evans and Shi. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Zhao, Lu Guan, Min Zhu, Xiaobo Karama, Sherif Khundrakpam, Budhachandra Wang, Meiyun Dong, Minghao Qin, Wei Tian, Jie Evans, Alan C. Shi, Dapeng
spellingShingle	Zhao, Lu Guan, Min Zhu, Xiaobo Karama, Sherif Khundrakpam, Budhachandra Wang, Meiyun Dong, Minghao Qin, Wei Tian, Jie Evans, Alan C. Shi, Dapeng Aberrant Topological Patterns of Structural Cortical Networks in Psychogenic Erectile Dysfunction
author_facet	Zhao, Lu Guan, Min Zhu, Xiaobo Karama, Sherif Khundrakpam, Budhachandra Wang, Meiyun Dong, Minghao Qin, Wei Tian, Jie Evans, Alan C. Shi, Dapeng
author_sort	Zhao, Lu
title	Aberrant Topological Patterns of Structural Cortical Networks in Psychogenic Erectile Dysfunction
title_short	Aberrant Topological Patterns of Structural Cortical Networks in Psychogenic Erectile Dysfunction
title_full	Aberrant Topological Patterns of Structural Cortical Networks in Psychogenic Erectile Dysfunction
title_fullStr	Aberrant Topological Patterns of Structural Cortical Networks in Psychogenic Erectile Dysfunction
title_full_unstemmed	Aberrant Topological Patterns of Structural Cortical Networks in Psychogenic Erectile Dysfunction
title_sort	aberrant topological patterns of structural cortical networks in psychogenic erectile dysfunction
description	Male sexual arousal (SA) has been known as a multidimensional experience involving closely interrelated and coordinated neurobehavioral components that rely on widespread brain regions. Recent functional neuroimaging studies have shown relation between abnormal/altered dynamics in these circuits and male sexual dysfunction. However, alterations in the topological1 organization of structural brain networks in male sexual dysfunction are still unclear. Here, we used graph theory2 to investigate the topological properties of large-scale structural brain networks, which were constructed using inter-regional correlations of cortical thickness between 78 cortical regions in 40 patients with psychogenic erectile dysfunction (pED) and 39 normal controls. Compared with normal controls, pED patients exhibited a less optimal global topological organization with reduced global and increased local efficiencies. Our results suggest disrupted neural integration among distant brain regions in pED patients, consistent with previous reports of impaired white matter structure and abnormal functional integrity in pED. Additionally, disrupted global network topology in pED was observed to be primarily relevant to altered subnetwork and nodal properties within the networks mediating the cognitive, motivational and inhibitory processes of male SA, possibly indicating disrupted integration of these networks in the whole brain networks and might account for pED patients' abnormal cognitive, motivational and inhibitory processes for male SA. In total, our findings provide evidence for disrupted integrity in large-scale brain networks underlying the neurobehavioral processes of male SA in pED and provide new insights into the understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms of pED.
publisher	Frontiers Media S.A.
publishDate	2015
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4683194/
_version_	1613514073706594304

Aberrant Topological Patterns of Structural Cortical Networks in Psychogenic Erectile Dysfunction

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