Atypical Resting-State EEG Graph Metrics of Network Efficiency Across Development in Autism and Their Association with Social Cognition: Results from the LEAP Study.
E de Jonge, P Garcés, A de Bildt and 18 others
PMID 39951212WHAT IT FOUND
Resting-state brain network efficiency differed between autistic and non-autistic participants only in adolescence and adulthood, not childhood.
Alpha-band network measures showed small associations with empathy and emotion recognition, but did not predict theory of mind.
Key findings
01Autistic adolescents showed lower global network efficiency than non-autistic peers in the alpha frequency band, while children showed no significant group differences.
02In adults, autistic individuals had lower local clustering and small-worldness compared to non-autistic adults in the alpha band, but these network measures were not associated with social cognition scores.
03For adolescents with high autistic traits, lower global efficiency was associated with higher parent-reported empathy scores, an interaction that was not seen in those with lower traits.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The study is cross-sectional, so apparent developmental differences between age groups may reflect cohort effects rather than within-person change. Participants with higher symptomatology were more likely to be excluded due to poor EEG data quality, so findings may not generalise to autistic individuals with more severe traits. Social cognition measures used different versions or informants across age groups, preventing direct comparison of scores across development. Statistical power may have been insufficient to detect smaller brain-behaviour correlations or effects of medication and co-occurring conditions. The absence of differences in children does not confirm their absence, as equivalence testing was not performed.
Declared interests
Funding was provided by the Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking, European Union's Seventh Framework Programme, European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, Autism Speaks, Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking, Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, Autistica, and SFARI.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the association between lower global efficiency and higher empathy in adolescents with high autistic traits as a causal mechanism or a clinical marker. This was a secondary interaction finding with a small effect size, and the primary analysis showed no significant prediction of social cognition by network efficiency.
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