Altered task-related modulation of long-range connectivity in children with autism.
Ajay S Pillai, Danielle McAuliffe, Balaji M Lakshmanan and 3 others
PMID 28898569WHAT IT FOUND
During a tool-use pantomime task, children with autism showed increased long-range parietal brain connectivity from rest.
Controls showed decreased connectivity. The pattern was opposite to the expected decrease. The other tested band showed no group difference. This does not yet change practice.
Key findings
01During the task, children with autism showed increased alpha-band connectivity between left and right parietal regions, while controls showed decreased connectivity.
02The left-right parietal alpha difference survived the paper's correction for multiple comparisons, and no beta-band group differences were found.
03Exploratory analyses in children with autism found that larger left-right parietal alpha increases were associated with better tool-use imitation scores and lower autism symptom severity.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The analysis used 25 children with ASD and 33 controls after 38 subjects were excluded, so the sample is small. Excluded subjects had more severe ASD symptoms and lower IQ, so the results may not apply to children with more severe autism or lower cognitive ability. Children with anxiety and ADHD were included, and the authors state that the contributions of ASD and ADHD pathophysiology cannot be separated. Most group differences were not corrected for multiple comparisons. Only the left-right parietal alpha difference survived the correction. The study measured brain connectivity during one task, not therapy outcomes, so it cannot show that a treatment works or that the connectivity change causes symptoms. Exploratory correlations were tested with several behavioral measures and should be interpreted with caution. Technical issues such as volume conduction, non-stationarity, and possible signal power effects could influence the connectivity results.
Declared interests
No author conflicts are stated in the supplied text. The article is listed as supported by N.I.H. extramural research funding.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the increased alpha connectivity in children with autism as proof that autism is caused by overconnectivity or that a treatment should reduce it. This is a cross-sectional EEG group difference, not a tested intervention, and the correlations do not show cause.