Altered resting-state functional networks in patients with premenstrual syndrome: a graph-theoretical based study

Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) is a menstrual cycle-related disorder. Previous studies have indicated alterations of brain functional connectivity in PMS patients. However, little is known about the overall organization of brain network in PMS patients. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data deriving from 20 PMS patients and 21 healthy controls (HCs). Pearson correlation between mean time-series was used to estimate connectivity matrix between each paired regions of interest, and the connectivity matrix for each participant was then binarized. Graph theory analysis was applied to assess each participant’s global and local topological properties of brain functional network. Correlation analysis was performed to evaluate relationships between the daily rating of severity of problems (DRSP) and abnormal network properties. PMS patients had lower small-worldness values than HCs. PMS-related alterations of nodal properties were mainly found in the posterior cingulate cortex, precuneus and angular gyrus. The PMS-related abnormal connectivity components were mainly associated with the thalamus, putamen and middle cingulate cortex. In the PMS group, the DRSP score were negatively correlated with the area under the curves of nodal local efficiency in the posterior cingulate cortex. Our study suggests that the graph-theory method may be one potential tool to detect disruptions of brain connections and may provide important evidence for understanding the PMS from the disrupted network organization perspective.