Altered Temporal Structure of Neural Phase Synchrony in Patients With Autism Spectrum Disorder

• Published in: Frontiers in psychiatry Vol. 12; p. 618573
• Main Authors: Jia, Huibin, Gao, Fei, Yu, Dongchuan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Frontiers Media S.A 10.11.2021
• Subjects: autism spectrum disorder; default mode network; detrended fluctuation analysis; long-range temporal correlations; mirror neuron system; phase synchrony; Psychiatry; mirror neuron system; long-range temporal correlations; autism spectrum disorder; default mode network; phase synchrony; detrended fluctuation analysis
• ISSN: 1664-0640; 1664-0640
• DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.618573

Functional connectivity, quantified by phase synchrony, between brain regions is known to be aberrant in patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Here, we evaluated the long-range temporal correlations of time-varying phase synchrony (TV-PS) of electrocortical oscillations in patients with ASD as well as typically developing people using detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) after validating the scale-invariance of the TV-PS time series. By comparing the DFA exponents between the two groups, we found that those of the TV-PS time series of high-gamma oscillations were significantly attenuated in patients with ASD. Furthermore, the regions involved in aberrant TV-PS time series were mainly within the social ability and cognition-related cortical networks. These results support the notion that abnormal social functions observed in patients with ASD may be caused by the highly volatile phase synchrony states of electrocortical oscillations.