Disentangling local functional connectivity and its variability as a biomarker for predicting dysfunction in patients with diffuse axonal injury

Purpose To investigates and better understand local functional connectivity and its variability, and explore their predictive values of patients with diffuse axonal injury (DAI). Methods We prospectively enrolled 24 DAI patients and well-matched healthy controls ( n = 26) receiving resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. We first assessed static and dynamic regional homogeneity (ReHo); then, a k-means clustering algorithm were performed to cluster ReHo states; finally, the prediction of clinical scores of the altered static and dynamic ReHo values was conducted using a general linear model. Results Compared with healthy subjects, the DAI patients showed distributed alteration in static and dynamic ReHo in several regions, and their alteration commonly located in the left cerebellum posterior lobe ( P