Liang Di, Xia Shengxiang, Zhang Xianfu, Zhang Weiwei
School of Science, Shandong Jianzhu University, Jinan, China.
School of Control Science and Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan, China.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2021 Sep 13;15:745671. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2021.745671. eCollection 2021.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex neuropsychiatric disorder with a complex and unknown etiology. Statistics demonstrate that the number of people diagnosed with ASD is increasing in countries around the world. Currently, although many neuroimaging studies indicate that ASD is characterized by abnormal functional connectivity (FC) patterns within brain networks rather than local functional or structural abnormalities, the FC characteristics of ASD are still poorly understood. In this study, a Vietoris-Rips (VR) complex filtration model of the brain functional network was established by using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data of children aged 6-13 years old [including 54 ASD patients and 52 typical development (TD) controls] from the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (ABIDE) public database. VR complex filtration barcodes are calculated by using persistent homology to describe the changes in the FC neural circuits of brain networks. The number of FC neural circuits with different length ranges at different threshold values is calculated by using the barcodes, the different brain regions participating in FC neural circuits are discussed, and the connectivity characteristics of brain FC neural circuits in the two groups are compared and analyzed. Our results show that the number of FC neural circuits with lengths of 8-12 is significantly decreased in the ASD group compared with the TD control group at threshold values of 0.7, 0.8 and 0.9, and there is no significant difference in the number of FC neural circuits with lengths of 4-7 and 13-16 and lengths 16. When the thresholds are 0.7, 0.8, and 0.9, the number of FC neural circuits in some brain regions, such as the right orbital part of the superior frontal gyrus, the left supplementary motor area, the left hippocampus, and the right caudate nucleus, involved in the study is significantly decreased in the ASD group compared with the TD control group. The results of this study indicate that there are significant differences in the FC neural circuits of brain networks in the ASD group compared with the TD control group.
自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）是一种病因复杂且不明的复杂神经精神疾病。统计数据表明，全球各国被诊断为ASD的人数正在增加。目前，尽管许多神经影像学研究表明，ASD的特征是脑网络内功能连接（FC）模式异常，而非局部功能或结构异常，但ASD的FC特征仍知之甚少。在本研究中，利用来自自闭症脑成像数据交换（ABIDE）公共数据库的6至13岁儿童（包括54例ASD患者和52例典型发育（TD）对照）的静息态功能磁共振成像（fMRI）数据，建立了脑功能网络的Vietoris-Rips（VR）复形过滤模型。通过使用持久同调计算VR复形过滤条形码，以描述脑网络FC神经回路的变化。利用条形码计算不同阈值下不同长度范围的FC神经回路数量，讨论参与FC神经回路的不同脑区，并比较和分析两组脑FC神经回路的连接特征。我们的结果表明，在阈值为0.7、0.8和0.9时，ASD组中长度为8至12的FC神经回路数量与TD对照组相比显著减少，而长度为4至7、13至16以及大于16的FC神经回路数量没有显著差异。当阈值为0.7、0.8和0.9时，与TD对照组相比，ASD组中参与研究的一些脑区，如额上回右侧眶部、左侧辅助运动区、左侧海马体和右侧尾状核的FC神经回路数量显著减少。本研究结果表明，与TD对照组相比，ASD组脑网络的FC神经回路存在显著差异。
