Altered Functional Topological Organization in Type-2 Diabetes Mellitus With and Without Microvascular Complications

Microvascular complications can accelerate cognitive impairment in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and have a high impact on their quality of life; however, the underlying mechanism is still unclear. The complex network in the human brain is the physiological basis for information processing and cognitive expression. Therefore, this study explored the relationship between the functional network topological properties and cognitive function in T2DM patients with and without microvascular complications (T2DM-C and T2DM-NC, respectively). Sixty-seven T2DM patients and 41 healthy controls (HCs) underwent resting-state functional MRI and neuropsychological assessment. Then, graph theoretical network analysis was performed to explore the global and nodal topological alterations in the functional whole brain networks of T2DM patients. Correlation analyses were performed to investigate the relationship between the altered topological parameters and cognitive/clinical variables. The T2DM-C group exhibited significantly higher local efficiency (Eloc), normalized cluster coefficient (γ), and small-world characteristics (σ) than the HCs. Patients with T2DM at different clinical stages (T2DM-C and T2DM-NC) showed varying degrees of abnormalities in node properties. In addition, compared with T2DM-NC patients, T2DM-C patients showed nodal properties disorders in the occipital visual network, cerebellum and middle temporal gyrus. The Eloc metrics were positively correlated with HbA1c level (P = 0.001, r = 0.515) and the NE values in the right paracentral lobule were negatively related with serum creatinine values (P = 0.001, r = −0.517) in T2DM-C patients. This study found that T2DM-C patients displayed more extensive changes at different network topology scales. The visual network and cerebellar may be the central vulnerable regions of T2DM-C patients.