Figure 4 .

Comparison of the segmented thalamic nuclei between DOC and HC. (A) The extent of shape deformation in anterior (shrinkage) and dorsal posterior (expansion) nucleus of the right thalamus in patients with DOC relative to HC, as quantified by the logarithm of the Jacobian determinant. The yellow rectangle shows the template segmentation result of anterior and dorsal posterior nuclei of the right thalamus in the 2 groups. (B) Results from the permutation test of the NMI between thalamic partitions of DOC and HC groups. The histogram shows the distribution of NMI obtained from 1000 permutations. The similarity of right thalamic partitions between the 2 groups significantly decreased (P < 0.05). (C) Correlations between the CRS-R scores and the structural markers (FD and ratio changes of the volume relative to HC) in the 2 thalamic subfields with significant shape deformation. A significant negative correlation was found between the CRS-R scores and the volume changes in the right dorsal posterior nucleus (partial correlation with age, intracranial volume, and the duration of DOC status as covariates, r = 0.81, P = 0.01). In contrast, the FD showed a positive correlation with the CRS-R scores (partial correlation with age, intracranial volume, and the duration of DOC status as covariates, r = 0.71, P = 0.04). No significant correlation was found between the structural properties of the right anterior nucleus and the CRS-R scores (Ps > 0.05).