The ROIs for DCM analysis were determined based on the results obtained from our MVPA. These ROIs include: the right dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), right putamen, right nucleus accumbens (NACC), right lateral orbitofrontal cortex (LOFC), and left pre-supplementary motor area(pre-SMA) (Fig. 3 and Table 2). The differences between groups in data set 1 are illustrated in Fig. 4 and Table 3. The variance between the two groups under statistical comparison exhibited a comparable magnitude. Notably, the intrinsic self-connections of the left pre-SMA were inhibitory and reached significance after the t-test (t = −3.73, P < 0.001, FDR corrected, P < 0.001). Additionally, the three extrinsic connections involving the left pre-SMA, right dACC, right putamen, and right NACC demonstrated significant differences. These extrinsic connections involve from left pre-SMA to right putamen (t = −3.89, P < 0.001, FDR corrected, P < 0.001), from right dACC to right putamen (t = −3.17, P = 0.002, FDR corrected, P = 0.002) and from right NACC to left pre-SMA (t = 3.27, P = 0.002, FDR corrected, P = 0.002).Table 2Brain region contributed
