Javaheripour Nooshin, Wagner Gerd, de la Cruz Feliberto, Walter Martin, Szycik Gregor R, Tietze Fabian-Alexander
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Jena University Hospital, Jena, Germany.
Center for Intervention and Research on Adaptive and Maladaptive Brain Circuits Underlying Mental Health (C-I-R-C), Jena, Germany.
Front Psychiatry. 2023 Aug 17;14:1223147. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1223147. eCollection 2023.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that persists into adulthood with both social and cognitive disturbances. Asperger's syndrome (AS) was a distinguished subcategory of autism in the DSM-IV-TR defined by specific symptoms including difficulties in social interactions, inflexible thinking patterns, and repetitive behaviour without any delay in language or cognitive development. Studying the functional brain organization of individuals with these specific symptoms may help to better understand Autism spectrum symptoms.
The aim of this study is therefore to investigate functional connectivity as well as functional network organization characteristics using graph-theory measures of the whole brain in male adults with AS compared to healthy controls (HC) (AS: = 15, age range 21-55 (mean ± sd: 39.5 ± 11.6), HC: = 15, age range 22-57 [mean ± sd: 33.5 ± 8.5]).
No significant differences were found when comparing the region-by-region connectivity at the whole-brain level between the AS group and HC. However, measures of "transitivity," which reflect local information processing and functional segregation, and "assortativity," indicating network resilience, were reduced in the AS group compared to HC. On the other hand, global efficiency, which represents the overall effectiveness and speed of information transfer across the entire brain network, was increased in the AS group.
Our findings suggest that individuals with AS may have alterations in the organization and functioning of brain networks, which could contribute to the distinctive cognitive and behavioural features associated with this condition. We suggest further research to explore the association between these altered functional patterns in brain networks and specific behavioral traits observed in individuals with AS, which could provide valuable insights into the underlying mechanisms of its symptomatology.
自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）是一种神经发育障碍，会持续至成年期，伴有社交和认知障碍。阿斯伯格综合征（AS）是《精神疾病诊断与统计手册第四版，修订版》（DSM-IV-TR）中自闭症的一个独特子类别，其定义为具有特定症状，包括社交互动困难、思维模式僵化以及重复行为，且语言或认知发展无延迟。研究具有这些特定症状个体的大脑功能组织，可能有助于更好地理解自闭症谱系症状。
因此，本研究的目的是使用全脑图谱理论测量方法，调查成年男性AS患者与健康对照者（HC）（AS组：n = 15，年龄范围21 - 55岁[平均±标准差：39.5 ± 11.6]；HC组：n = 15，年龄范围22 - 57岁[平均±标准差：33.5 ± 8.5]）之间的功能连接以及功能网络组织特征。
在全脑水平上比较AS组和HC组的逐区域连接时，未发现显著差异。然而，反映局部信息处理和功能分离的“传递性”测量指标以及表明网络弹性的“聚类系数”，AS组相比于HC组降低。另一方面，代表整个脑网络信息传递的整体有效性和速度的全局效率，在AS组中升高。
我们的研究结果表明，AS患者可能在脑网络的组织和功能方面存在改变，这可能导致与该病症相关的独特认知和行为特征。我们建议进一步开展研究，以探索脑网络中这些改变的功能模式与AS患者所观察到的特定行为特征之间的关联，这可能为其症状学的潜在机制提供有价值的见解。
