TY - JOUR
T1 - Increased scale-free dynamics in salience network in adult high-functioning autism
AU - Damiani, Stefano
AU - Scalabrini, Andrea
AU - Gomez-Pilar, Javier
AU - Brondino, Natascia
AU - Northoff, Georg
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by: Canadian Institute of Health Research, Michael Smith Foundation, EJLB - Canadian Institute of Health Research, Canada Research Chair to G. Northoff and by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31271195). This work was supported by the grant from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, National Key R&D Program of China (2016YFC1306700).
Funding Information:
This work was supported by: Canadian Institute of Health Research , Michael Smith Foundation , EJLB - Canadian Institute of Health Research , Canada Research Chair to G. Northoff and by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31271195 ). This work was supported by the grant from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, National Key R&D Program of China ( 2016YFC1306700 ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is clinically characterized by extremely slow and inflexible behavior. The neuronal mechanisms of these symptoms remain unclear though. Using fMRI, we investigate the resting state's temporal structure in the frequency domain (scale-free activity as measured with Power-Law Exponent, PLE, and Spectral Entropy, SE) and temporal variance (neural variability) in high-functioning, adult ASD comparing them with schizophrenic and neurotypical subjects. We show that ASD is characterized by high PLE in salience network, especially in dorsal anterior cingulate. This increase in PLE was 1) specific for salience network; 2) independent of other measures such as neuronal variability/SD and functional connectivity, which did not show any significant difference; 3) detected in two independent samples of ASD but not in the schizophrenia sample. Among salience network subregions, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex exhibited PLE differences between ASD and neurotypicals in both samples, showing high robustness in ROC curves values. Salience network abnormal temporal structure was confirmed by SE, which was strongly anticorrelated with PLE and thus decreased in ASD. Taken together, our findings show abnormal temporal structure (but normal temporal variance) in resting state salience network in adult high-functioning ASD. The abnormally high PLE indicates a relative predominance of slower over faster frequencies, which may underlie the slow adaptation to unexpected changes and the inflexible behavior observed in autistic individuals. The specificity of abnormal PLE in salience network suggests its potential utility as biomarker in ASD.
AB - Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is clinically characterized by extremely slow and inflexible behavior. The neuronal mechanisms of these symptoms remain unclear though. Using fMRI, we investigate the resting state's temporal structure in the frequency domain (scale-free activity as measured with Power-Law Exponent, PLE, and Spectral Entropy, SE) and temporal variance (neural variability) in high-functioning, adult ASD comparing them with schizophrenic and neurotypical subjects. We show that ASD is characterized by high PLE in salience network, especially in dorsal anterior cingulate. This increase in PLE was 1) specific for salience network; 2) independent of other measures such as neuronal variability/SD and functional connectivity, which did not show any significant difference; 3) detected in two independent samples of ASD but not in the schizophrenia sample. Among salience network subregions, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex exhibited PLE differences between ASD and neurotypicals in both samples, showing high robustness in ROC curves values. Salience network abnormal temporal structure was confirmed by SE, which was strongly anticorrelated with PLE and thus decreased in ASD. Taken together, our findings show abnormal temporal structure (but normal temporal variance) in resting state salience network in adult high-functioning ASD. The abnormally high PLE indicates a relative predominance of slower over faster frequencies, which may underlie the slow adaptation to unexpected changes and the inflexible behavior observed in autistic individuals. The specificity of abnormal PLE in salience network suggests its potential utility as biomarker in ASD.
KW - ASD
KW - Power-law exponent
KW - Resting state fMRI
KW - Salience network
KW - Schizophrenia
KW - Spectral entropy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85058509892&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85058509892&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.nicl.2018.101634
DO - 10.1016/j.nicl.2018.101634
M3 - Article
C2 - 30558869
AN - SCOPUS:85058509892
SN - 2213-1582
VL - 21
JO - NeuroImage: Clinical
JF - NeuroImage: Clinical
M1 - 101634
ER -