Altered brain function in patients with acrophobia: A voxel-wise degree centrality analysis

To explore the local spontaneous neural activity and whole-brain functional connectivity patterns in the resting brain of acrophobia patients. 50 patients with acrophobia and 47 healthy controls were selected for this study. All participants underwent resting-state MRI scans after enrollment. The imaging data were then analyzed using a voxel-based degree centrality (DC) method, and seed-based functional connectivity (FC) correlation analysis was used to explore the correlation between abnormal functional connectivity and clinical symptom scales in acrophobia. The severity of symptoms was evaluated using self-report and behavioral measures. Compared to controls, acrophobia patients showed higher DC in the right cuneus and left middle occipital gyrus and significantly lower DC in the right cerebellum and left orbitofrontal cortex (p