Abstract
Various neuroimaging studies had identified changes of cerebral activity and structures during the processes of sexual arousal. The identified brain regions were also believed to regulate emotional and cognitive processes. Yet, little was known about the neural mechanisms underlying psychogenic erectile dysfunction (pED). Moreover, brain mechanisms mediating the processing of sexual arousal by these psychological processes were unclear. To investigate the above issue, graph theory was applied to evaluate the topological properties of functional brain networks among 24 pED patients and 26 healthy controls. Abnormal metrics and correlations with clinical characteristics were further analyzed. Our results showed that pED had higher small-worldness and more modules. Furthermore, pED showed altered path length and strength of the right superior frontal gyrus (dorsolateral), superior parietal gyrus, parahippocampal gyrus and left temporal pole (superior temporal gyrus), postcentral gyrus, mainly located in the cognitive control and emotional regulation subnetworks. And the altered parameters of the small-worldness and right parahippocampal gyrus were related with the clinical characteristics of pED.
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