Individual Differences in Intrinsic Brain Networks Predict Symptom Severity in Autism Spectrum Disorders

• Published in: Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. 1991) Vol. 31; no. 1; pp. 681 - 693
• Main Authors: Pua, Emmanuel Peng Kiat, Thomson, Phoebe, Yang, Joseph Yuan-Mou, Craig, Jeffrey M, Ball, Gareth, Seal, Marc
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.01.2021
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Autism Spectrum Disorder - physiopathology; Brain - physiopathology; Brain Mapping - methods; Child; Humans; Individuality; Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods; Male; Neural Pathways - physiopathology; fMRI; twins; autism spectrum disorders; intrinsic brain networks; neural correlates
• ISSN: 1047-3211; 1460-2199
• DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhaa252

The neurobiology of heterogeneous neurodevelopmental disorders such as Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is still unknown. We hypothesized that differences in subject-level properties of intrinsic brain networks were important features that could predict individual variation in ASD symptom severity. We matched cases and controls from a large multicohort ASD dataset (ABIDE-II) on age, sex, IQ, and image acquisition site. Subjects were matched at the individual level (rather than at group level) to improve homogeneity within matched case-control pairs (ASD: n = 100, mean age = 11.43 years, IQ = 110.58; controls: n = 100, mean age = 11.43 years, IQ = 110.70). Using task-free functional magnetic resonance imaging, we extracted intrinsic functional brain networks using projective non-negative matrix factorization. Intrapair differences in strength in subnetworks related to the salience network (SN) and the occipital-temporal face perception network were robustly associated with individual differences in social impairment severity (T = 2.206, P = 0.0301). Findings were further replicated and validated in an independent validation cohort of monozygotic twins (n = 12; 3 pairs concordant and 3 pairs discordant for ASD). Individual differences in the SN and face-perception network are centrally implicated in the neural mechanisms of social deficits related to ASD.