title: Abnormal brain white matter network in young smokers: a graph theory analysis study.
abstract: Previous diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies had investigated the white matter (WM) integrity abnormalities in some specific fiber bundles in smokers. However, little is known about the changes in topological organization of WM structural network in young smokers. In current study, we acquired DTI datasets from 58 male young smokers and 51 matched nonsmokers and constructed the WM networks by the deterministic fiber tracking approach. Graph theoretical analysis was used to compare the topological parameters of WM network (global and nodal) and the inter-regional fractional anisotropy (FA) weighted WM connections between groups. The results demonstrated that both young smokers and nonsmokers had small-world topology in WM network. Further analysis revealed that the young smokers exhibited the abnormal topological organization, i.e., increased network strength, global efficiency, and decreased shortest path length. In addition, the increased nodal efficiency predominately was located in frontal cortex, striatum and anterior cingulate gyrus (ACG) in smokers. Moreover, based on network-based statistic (NBS) approach, the significant increased FA-weighted WM connections were mainly found in the PFC, ACG and supplementary motor area (SMA) regions. Meanwhile, the network parameters were correlated with the nicotine dependence severity (FTND) scores, and the nodal efficiency of orbitofrontal cortex was positive correlation with the cigarette per day (CPD) in young smokers. We revealed the abnormal topological organization of WM network in young smokers, which may improve our understanding of the neural mechanism of young smokers form WM topological organization level.
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi'an Shaanxi, 710071, People's Republic of China.|Engineering Research Center of Molecular and Neuro Imaging, Ministry of Education, Xi'an, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yajuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi'an Shaanxi, 710071, People's Republic of China.|Engineering Research Center of Molecular and Neuro Imaging, Ministry of Education, Xi'an, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi'an Shaanxi, 710071, People's Republic of China.|Engineering Research Center of Molecular and Neuro Imaging, Ministry of Education, Xi'an, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Ruonan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi'an Shaanxi, 710071, People's Republic of China.|Engineering Research Center of Molecular and Neuro Imaging, Ministry of Education, Xi'an, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yanzhi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Bi
authors.affiliation: Guangxi Key Laboratory of the Multi-source Information Mining and Security, Guangxi Normal University, Gulin, 541004, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yangding
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi'an Shaanxi, 710071, People's Republic of China.|Engineering Research Center of Molecular and Neuro Imaging, Ministry of Education, Xi'an, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Zhang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yi
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi'an Shaanxi, 710071, People's Republic of China.|Engineering Research Center of Molecular and Neuro Imaging, Ministry of Education, Xi'an, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Jixin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory of Pattern Recognition and Intelligent Image Processing, Information Processing Laboratory, School of Information Engineering, Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology, Baotou, Inner Mongolia, 014010, People's Republic of China. fmydh@imust.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Dahua
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi'an Shaanxi, 710071, People's Republic of China. kyuan@xidian.edu.cn.|Engineering Research Center of Molecular and Neuro Imaging, Ministry of Education, Xi'an, People's Republic of China. kyuan@xidian.edu.cn.|Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory of Pattern Recognition and Intelligent Image Processing, Information Processing Laboratory, School of Information Engineering, Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology, Baotou, Inner Mongolia, 014010, People's Republic of China. kyuan@xidian.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yuan
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology; D056324:Diffusion Tensor Imaging / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology; D000074285:Smokers; D012907:Smoking / Q000473:pathology*; D066127:White Matter / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI); Graph theory analysis (GTA); White matter (WM); Young smokers