Hill Aron T, Ford Talitha C, Bailey Neil W, Lum Jarrad A G, Bigelow Felicity J, Oberman Lindsay M, Enticott Peter G
Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, School of Psychology, Deakin University, Burwood, VIC 3125, Australia.
Centre for Mental Health and Brain Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia.
Cereb Cortex. 2025 Feb 5;35(2). doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhaf020.
Altered brain connectivity and atypical neural oscillations have been observed in autism, yet their relationship with autistic traits in nonclinical populations remains underexplored. Here, we employ electroencephalography to examine functional connectivity, oscillatory power, and broadband aperiodic activity during a dynamic facial emotion processing task in 101 typically developing children aged 4 to 12 years. We investigate associations between these electrophysiological measures of brain dynamics and autistic traits as assessed by the Social Responsiveness Scale, 2nd Edition (SRS-2). Our results revealed that increased facial emotion processing-related connectivity across theta (4 to 7 Hz) and beta (13 to 30 Hz) frequencies correlated positively with higher SRS-2 scores, predominantly in right-lateralized (theta) and bilateral (beta) cortical networks. Additionally, a steeper 1/f-like aperiodic slope (spectral exponent) across fronto-central electrodes was associated with higher SRS-2 scores. Greater aperiodic-adjusted theta and alpha oscillatory power further correlated with both higher SRS-2 scores and steeper aperiodic slopes. These findings underscore important links between facial emotion processing-related brain dynamics and autistic traits in typically developing children. Future work could extend these findings to assess these electroencephalography-derived markers as potential mechanisms underlying behavioral difficulties in autism.
在自闭症患者中已观察到大脑连接性改变和非典型神经振荡，然而它们在非临床人群中与自闭症特征的关系仍未得到充分探索。在此，我们采用脑电图来检查101名4至12岁发育正常儿童在动态面部情绪处理任务期间的功能连接性、振荡功率和宽带非周期性活动。我们研究这些大脑动力学的电生理测量指标与通过社交反应量表第二版（SRS - 2）评估的自闭症特征之间的关联。我们的结果显示，在θ波（4至7赫兹）和β波（13至30赫兹）频率上，与面部情绪处理相关的连接性增加与较高的SRS - 2得分呈正相关，主要集中在右侧化（θ波）和双侧（β波）皮质网络。此外，额中央电极上更陡峭的1/f样非周期性斜率（频谱指数）与较高的SRS - 2得分相关。更大的经非周期性调整的θ波和α波振荡功率进一步与较高的SRS - 2得分和更陡峭的非周期性斜率相关。这些发现强调了发育正常儿童中面部情绪处理相关大脑动力学与自闭症特征之间的重要联系。未来的研究可以扩展这些发现，以评估这些源自脑电图的标记物，作为自闭症行为困难的潜在机制。
