To use diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and graph theory approaches to explore the brain structural connectome in patients with early-stage drug-naive Parkinson's disease (PD). The structural connectome was constructed by using deterministic tractography and thresholding the mean fractional anisotropy of 90 brain regions to yield 90*90 partial correlation matrixes. The decreased characteristic path length Lp and increased global efficiency Eglob in the PD patients relative to healthy controls indicated that structural networks are closer to randomization, providing a structural basis for functional alterations of PD.
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