Many thanks Andrew. Just to clarify - I've found 82 nodes in the initial NBS where one group had significantly less connectivity.  I then used those nodes to extract graph theory measures from in GraphVar. Path length is longer across these nodes in the same group and the cluster coefficient is smaller. I found, however, that some other graph theory measures across these 82 nodes (e.g., small world propensity) were not different between the two groups.

I'm asking if there's evidence of circularity because a reviewer is saying that what I've done is circular and doesn't add anything new to the initial NBS result. All the best, Liam.