A graph deep learning method for diagnosis of Parkinson's disease using brain functional connectivity features

Early and precise identification of Parkinson's disease (PD) is crucial for clinical intervention. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) provides a valuable approach for revealing PD-related differences in brain functional connectivity (FC). However, existing methods often focus solely on characterizing the spatial topology of FC while neglecting its time-varying dynamic fluctuations. Furthermore, they frequently exhibit limited generalization capability when dealing with small sample sizes, and their decision-making mechanisms lack interpretability. To address these limitations, this study proposes an interpretable graph convolutional network framework. This framework integrates both static and dynamic FC information to capture both the stable topological structure and the dynamic temporal characteristics of brain networks. Simultaneously, it models population relationships by constructing an inter-subject similarity graph to enhance the model's representational capacity. Additionally, this study incorporates interpretability analysis techniques to deeply dissect the model's decision-making mechanism and identify key brain regions critical for classification. Results demonstrate that the proposed model achieves superior performance in PD classification tasks and exhibits good generalization ability. More importantly, by interpreting the model's decisions, key brain regions associated with PD discrimination were successfully identified. This study provides an effective computational framework for PD identification and offers new insights into understanding its pathological mechanisms.