The Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Lab for Neuroinformation; School of Life Science and Technology, Center for Information in BioMedicine, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, People's Republic of China.
Brain Mapping Unit, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2019 Dec 15;40(18):5354-5369. doi: 10.1002/hbm.24777. Epub 2019 Aug 29.
Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by atypical brain functional organization. Here we investigated the intrinsic indirect (semi-metric) connectivity of the functional connectome associated with autism. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scans were acquired from 65 neurotypical adults (33 males/32 females) and 61 autistic adults (30 males/31 females). From functional connectivity networks, semi-metric percentages (SMPs) were calculated to assess the proportion of indirect shortest functional pathways at global, hemisphere, network, and node levels. Group comparisons were then conducted to ascertain differences between autism and neurotypical control groups. Finally, the strength and length of edges were examined to explore the patterns of semi-metric connections associated with autism. Compared with neurotypical controls, autistic adults displayed significantly higher SMP at all spatial scales, similar to prior observations in adolescents. Differences were primarily in weaker, longer-distance edges in the majority between networks. However, no significant diagnosis-by-sex interaction effects were observed on global SMP. These findings suggest increased indirect functional connectivity in the autistic brain is persistent from adolescence to adulthood and is indicative of reduced functional network integration.
自闭症是一种神经发育障碍，其特征是大脑功能组织异常。在这里，我们研究了与自闭症相关的功能连接组的内在间接（半度量）连接。我们从 65 名神经典型成年人（33 名男性/32 名女性）和 61 名自闭症成年人（30 名男性/31 名女性）中获取了静息态功能磁共振成像扫描。从功能连接网络中，我们计算了半度量百分比（SMP），以评估全局、半球、网络和节点水平上间接最短功能路径的比例。然后进行组间比较，以确定自闭症组和神经典型对照组之间的差异。最后，我们检查了边缘的强度和长度，以探索与自闭症相关的半度量连接模式。与神经典型对照组相比，自闭症成年人在所有空间尺度上的 SMP 均显著升高，这与青少年的先前观察结果相似。差异主要在于大多数网络之间较弱、较长的边缘。然而，在全局 SMP 上未观察到显著的诊断-性别交互效应。这些发现表明，自闭症大脑中的间接功能连接在从青春期到成年期持续增加，表明功能网络整合减少。
