ABSTRACT

Objective: To investigate the whole functional brain networks of active Cushing disease (CD) patients about topological parameters (small world and rich club et al.) and compared with healthy control (NC).

Methods: Nineteen active CD patients and twenty-two healthy control subjects, matched in age, gender, and education, underwent resting-state fMRI. Graph theoretical analysis were used to calculate the functional brain networks organization of all participants and compare between active CD and NC.

Results: Active CD patients revealed higher global efficiency, less path length and cluster efficiency compared with healthy control. Additionally, small word organization was present in active CD patients but higher than healthy control. Moreover, rich club connections, feeder connections and local connection were significantly decreased in active CD patients.

Conclusions: The functional network properties were disrupted in active CD patients compared with healthy control. Analyzing the changes of abnormal network metrics is helpful to understand the pathophysiological mechanism.