Globally weaker and topologically different: resting-state connectivity in youth with autism.
Benjamin E Yerys, John D Herrington, Theodore D Satterthwaite and 3 others
PMID 28770039WHAT IT FOUND
Youth with autism had weaker overall brain connection strength than controls, and weaker global strength tracked with higher autism symptom scores.
Some attention-related networks were more internally connected, while links between some networks were weaker.
Key findings
01Youth with autism had lower average whole-brain connection strength than typically developing youth.
02Within the autism group, lower average whole-brain connection strength was associated with higher ADOS total scores.
03After correction for multiple comparisons, relative connectivity was stronger within the ventral attention and retrosplenial-temporal systems, and weaker between the ventral attention and somatomotor mouth systems.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The final analysis used 163 youth after excluding 48 for motion and 3 for extreme global connectivity, so children who moved more or had extreme scans were not represented. The autism and control groups were not matched on IQ; mean General Conceptual Ability was 106 in the autism group and 112 in controls. Some autism youth were taking medications, and only 6 stimulant users were asked to withhold medication, so medication effects were not fully controlled. This was a cross-sectional scan study, so it cannot show that connectivity differences cause symptoms or change with therapy. Some cross-system differences did not remain significant in the IQ-matched sensitivity analysis. The sample under-represents children with autism and significant intellectual disability.
Declared interests
Funded by National Institute of Mental Health, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Philadelphia Foundation, Pennsylvania Department of Health, Pfizer Foundation, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The supplied text lists funders but does not state author conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not use these findings to diagnose or treat an individual child. The study measured group-level brain connections at one time point and did not test whether therapy changed them.