Background. Previous studies explored the whole-brain functional connectome using the degree approach in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, whether the altered degree values can be used to discriminate OCD from healthy controls (HCs) remains unclear. Methods. A total of 40 medication-free patients with OCD and 38 HCs underwent a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) scan. Data were analyzed with the degree approach and a support vector machine (SVM) classifier. Results. Patients with OCD showed increased degree values in the left thalamus and left cerebellum Crus I and decreased degree values in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, right precuneus, and left postcentral gyrus. SVM classification analysis indicated that the increased degree value in the left thalamus is a marker of OCD, with an acceptable accuracy of 88.46%, sensitivity of 87.50%, and specificity of 89.47%. Conclusion. Altered degree values within and outside the cortical-striatal-thalamic-cortical (CSTC) circuit may cocontribute to the pathophysiology of OCD. Increased degree values of the left thalamus can be used as a future marker for OCD understanding-classification.

中文翻译：

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无药物强迫症患者休息时功能连接强度的改变

背景。以前的研究在强迫症 (OCD) 患者中使用学位方法探索了全脑功能连接组。然而，改变的程度值是否可用于区分强迫症和健康对照（HCs）仍不清楚。方法。共有 40 名强迫症患者和 38 名 HC 患者接受了静息状态功能磁共振成像 (rs-fMRI) 扫描。使用度数方法和支持向量机 (SVM) 分类器分析数据。结果. 强迫症患者的左丘脑和左小脑Crus I的度数增加，而左背外侧前额叶皮层、右楔前叶和左中央后回的度数降低。SVM分类分析表明左侧丘脑度数增加是OCD的标志物，可接受的准确度为88.46%，敏感性为87.50%，特异性为89.47%。结论。皮质 - 纹状体 - 丘脑 - 皮质 (CSTC) 回路内外的度数改变可能共同促成 OCD 的病理生理学。左侧丘脑的度数增加可用作 OCD 理解分类的未来标志。