Yue Zhang1,
Jing Liu2, Jing Wang1, Minyi Du3, Wenxue
Fang3, Dongxin Wang3, Xiaoping P. Hu4,
Xuexiang Jiang2, Jing Fang1, Xiaoying Wang2,
Jue Zhang1
1Peking
University, Beijing, China; 2Department of Radiology, Peking
University First Hospital, Beijing, China; 3Department of
Anesthesiology, Peking University First Hospital, Beijing, China; 4Department
of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology / Emory
University, Atlanta, GA, United States
Understanding the effect of postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) pain on brain activity is important for clinic strategies. This is the first study, to our knowledge, to relate PHN pain to small-world properties of brain functional networks. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to construct brain functional networks during the resting state. Thirteen patients with PHN pain and thirteen age-matched controls were analyzed (7 males, 6 females for both groups). A tendency shift towards random networks for PHN in comparison with the healthy controls was found. Moreover, regional nodal efficiency was found to be profoundly affected for PHN.