Identifying diagnostic biomarkers in functional motor disorders through multimodal behavioral, neurophysiological, and imaging assessment using explainable machine learning.

BACKGROUND

Functional motor disorders (FMDs) represent a frequent and disabling neurological condition. The lack of reliable diagnostic biomarkers and their heterogeneity might affect diagnosis. We identified multimodal biomarkers distinguishing FMDs from healthy controls (HCs) using machine-learning approaches.

METHODS

In this multicenter cross-sectional study, consecutive adults with a clinically established FMDs diagnosis (n = 75, 74.7% female; mean age 44.20 ± 12.92) and age- and sex-matched HCs (n = 75; 58.6% female; 48.42 ± 11.67) were recruited. All participants underwent standardized behavioral, neurophysiological, and brain MRI assessment exploring motor, exteroceptive, and interoceptive domains. A Random Forest (RF) classifier combined with repeated stratified k-fold cross-validation was trained on the collected features. Predictive performance was evaluated using accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, precision, F1-score, and AUC-ROC. SHapley Additive exPlanations interpreted feature importance.

RESULTS

The strongest diagnostic biomarkers were lower dual-task effect scores for postural sway area under eyes-closed motor and cognitive conditions, and gait speed during the motor dual-task, followed by increased vDMN and basal ganglia networks functional connectivity, reduced baseline ipsilateral-contralateral R2 blink reflex area, and higher DNIC-to-baseline N2P2 amplitude ratios for the lower limb. The RF classifier achieved robust performance (accuracy 85.0%, sensitivity 83.9%, specificity 86.1%, F1-score 85.7%, AUC-ROC 0.921).

CONCLUSIONS

Motor, functional neuroimaging, and neurophysiological markers demonstrated diagnostic value in distinguishing FMDs from healthy controls, addressing the current lack of objective tools and supporting more confident and accurate diagnosis of these heterogeneous conditions.

TRIAL REGISTRATION: Trial registration number NCT06328790. Registered on 26 March 2024.