Lau Way K W, Leung Mei-Kei, Zhang Ruibin
Department of Special Education and Counselling, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China; Integrated Centre for Wellbeing, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China; Bioanalytical Laboratory for Educational Sciences, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
Department of Special Education and Counselling, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. 2020 Dec 20;103:109986. doi: 10.1016/j.pnpbp.2020.109986. Epub 2020 May 28.
Underconnectivity in the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) may be associated with a weakened ability to interpret social signals in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and result in cognitive inflexibility - a hallmark feature of ASD. However, previous neuroimaging studies using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging in ASD reported inconsistent findings on functional connectivity of the PCC. This study investigated the aberrant resting-state functional connectivity of the PCC in ASD using multilevel kernel density analysis.
Online databases (MEDLINE/PubMed) were searched for PCC-based functional connectivity in ASD. Ten studies (501 subjects; 161 reported foci) met the inclusion criteria of this meta-analysis.
We found one consistent and strong abnormal functional connectivity of ASD during the resting state, which was the hypoconnectivity between the PCC and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC). Importantly, the Jackknife sensitivity analysis revealed that the VMPFC cluster was stably hypoconnected with the PCC in ASD (maximum spatial overlap rate: 100%).
The reduced PCC-VMPFC functional coupling may provide an early insight into the effects of ASD on multiple dimensions of functioning, including higher-order cognitive and complex social functions.
后扣带回皮质（PCC）的连接不足可能与自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）中解读社交信号能力减弱有关，并导致认知灵活性受损——这是ASD的一个标志性特征。然而，以往利用静息态功能磁共振成像对ASD进行的神经影像学研究，在PCC的功能连接方面报告了不一致的结果。本研究采用多级核密度分析，调查了ASD中PCC异常的静息态功能连接。
检索在线数据库（MEDLINE/PubMed）中有关ASD基于PCC的功能连接的研究。十项研究（501名受试者；161个报告病灶）符合本荟萃分析的纳入标准。
我们发现ASD在静息状态下存在一种一致且强烈的异常功能连接，即PCC与腹内侧前额叶皮质（VMPFC）之间的连接不足。重要的是，留一法敏感性分析显示，在ASD中VMPFC簇与PCC稳定地存在连接不足（最大空间重叠率：100%）。
PCC-VMPFC功能耦合的降低可能为深入了解ASD对包括高阶认知和复杂社交功能在内的多个功能维度的影响提供早期线索。
