Systematic review and meta-analysis: multimodal functional and anatomical neural alterations in autism spectrum disorder

Guo, Zixuan; Tang, Xinyue; Xiao, Shu; Yan, Hong; Sun, Shilin; Yang, Zibin; Huang, Li; Chen, Zhuoming; Wang, Ying

doi:10.1186/s13229-024-00593-6

Cited by 12 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 101 publications

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“…In contrast, in adult ASD, numerous structural parameters from the VBM analysis, but fewer functional gradient parameters, showed significant correlations with clinical traits. Although the dependency of functional activity and structural findings on the age of participants with ASD has been supported by previous studies (Z. Guo et al, 2024 ; Ortug et al, 2024 ; Pascual‐Belda et al, 2018 ), the heterogeneous interactions of functional, structural, and clinical findings between adolescent and adult individuals with ASD are rarely mentioned. Distinct neurodevelopmental trajectories in individuals with ASD across their lifespan are characterized by early brain overgrowth, followed by developmental arrest in late childhood and early adolescence and accelerated neuroatrophy in adulthood (Courchesne et al, 2011 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 83%

Brain functional gradient and structure features in adolescent and adult autism spectrum disorders

Ruan,

Chen,

Yao

et al. 2024

Human Brain Mapping

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Understanding how function and structure are organized and their coupling with clinical traits in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a primary goal in network neuroscience research for ASD. Atypical brain functional networks and structures in individuals with ASD have been reported, but whether these associations show heterogeneous hierarchy modeling in adolescents and adults with ASD remains to be clarified. In this study, 176 adolescent and 74 adult participants with ASD without medication or comorbidities and sex, age matched healthy controls (HCs) from 19 research groups from the openly shared Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange II database were included. To investigate the relationship between the functional gradient, structural changes, and clinical symptoms of brain networks in adolescents and adults with ASD, functional gradient and voxel‐based morphometry (VBM) analyses based on 1000 parcels defined by Schaefer mapped to Yeo's seven‐network atlas were performed. Pearson's correlation was calculated between the gradient scores, gray volume and density, and clinical traits. The subsystem‐level analysis showed that the second gradient scores of the default mode networks and frontoparietal network in patients with ASD were relatively compressed compared to adolescent HCs. Adult patients with ASD showed an overall compression gradient of 1 in the ventral attention networks. In addition, the gray density and volumes of the subnetworks showed no significant differences between the ASD and HC groups at the adolescent stage. However, adults with ASD showed decreased gray density in the limbic network. Moreover, numerous functional gradient parameters, but not VBM parameters, in adolescents with ASD were considerably correlated with clinical traits in contrast to those in adults with ASD. Our findings proved that the atypical changes in adolescent ASD mainly involve the brain functional network, while in adult ASD, the changes are more related to brain structure, including gray density and volume. These changes in functional gradients or structures are markedly correlated with clinical traits in patients with ASD. Our study provides a novel understanding of the pathophysiology of the structure–function hierarchy in ASD.

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