Procedure Flowchart illustrating the different steps of analysis with the fMRI data and its results. (A) An overview of the adapted analysis paradigm in this study. (B) Cortical synchronization and metastability in normal controls (NC) and Parkinson’s disease patients (PD). (C) Cortical synchronization and metastability in Parkinson’s disease in both the OFF and ON states.

Relationship between cortical synchronization and metastability and MMSE score. (A) Relationship between cortical synchronization of fMRI BOLD signal and MMSE score. (B) Relationship between cortical metastability of fMRI BOLD signal and MMSE score. Mediation model using group label as the predictor, cortical synchronization (C) and metastability (D) as the mediators, and MMSE score as the dependent variable. Group labels are categorical label of normal controls (NC) and PD, where NC were set as 0, PD were set as 1. ** P < 0.05, ** P <.01, *** P < 0.001.