Ambivert degree identifies crucial brain functional hubs and improves detection of Alzheimer's Disease and Autism Spectrum Disorder.

•A novel measure, ambivert degree, is proposed to detect hubs in the functional connectome.•Ambivert degree improves identification of crucial hubs compared to nodal degree and betweenness centrality.•Using ambivert degree as input features, deep neural networks detect AD and ASD from healthy controls.•The hubs detected in AD and ASD could be potential diagnostic biomarkers.