ARTICLE
19 October 2026

A Resting-state Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study on Macroscale Topological Properties of Whole-brain Functional Networks in Patients with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

Yumei Zhang1 ,  Qi Chen1 ,  Jun Lu1 ,  Yuanyuan Hu2 ,  Chengwei Wang1*
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1 Medical Imaging Center, the First Affiliated Hospital of Shihezi University, Shihezi 832008, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China
2 Department of Clinical Psychology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Shihezi University, Shihezi 832008, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China
CNR 2026 , 4(3), 99–106; https://doi.org/10.26689/CNR.v4i3.15705
© 2026 by the Author. Licensee: Bio-Byword Scientific Publishing Pty Ltd, Australia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Objective: To investigate alterations in resting-state functional connectivity in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Methods: This was a retrospective case-control study. Forty-five patients with PTSD and 45 healthy control group (HCG) subjects were included. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) scans were performed, and between-group differences in functional connectivity were compared. Results: This study did not find significant differences in macroscopic brain network functional connectivity between patients with PTSD and healthy individuals. Conclusion: There were no significant between-group differences in global efficiency, mean local efficiency, mean clustering coefficient, or number of rich-club connections of the whole-brain functional network between patients with PTSD and HCG, suggesting that brain network abnormalities in PTSD may not be changes in whole-brain macroscopic topological organization.

Keywords
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging
Functional connectivity imaging
Graph theory analysis
Funding
Clinical and Basic Research Project of the First Affiliated Hospital of Shihezi University (No. LC2023008)
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