Acupuncture Modulates Disrupted Whole-Brain Network after Ischemic Stroke: Evidence Based on Graph Theory Analysis

Figure 1

Comparison of small-world parameters (, , and ) at a sparsity range of 0.05-0.50. (a) The small-worldness () was compared between the stroke patients and the healthy controls, as well as the resting-state and postacupuncture intervention. In the resting state, the patients with stroke exhibited significantly lower values relative to the healthy controls on a sparsity threshold from 0.33 to 0.50. However, after acupuncture intervention, the enhanced values were not statistically different from the resting state. (b) On the sparsity threshold of 0.16-0.21, the clustering coefficient of patients was notably improved by acupuncture. (c) At several separated sparsities (), there were statistical differences in the characteristic path length between the two groups of subjects in the resting state. (stroke patients vs. healthy controls, in the resting state); , (resting state vs. postacupuncture intervention, in the stroke patients).

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