Association between attention, nonverbal intelligence and school performance of school-age children with Autism Spectrum Disorder from a public health context in Brazil

Dynamic functional connectivity in the right temporoparietal junction captures variations in male autistic trait expression

Autistic individuals can experience difficulties with attention reorienting and Theory of Mind (ToM), which are closely associated with anterior and posterior subdivisions of the right temporoparietal junction. While the link between these processes remains unclear, it is likely subserved by a dynamic crosstalk between these two subdivisions. We, therefore, examined the dynamic functional connectivity (dFC) between the anterior and posterior temporoparietal junction, as a biological marker of attention and ToM, to test its contribution to the manifestation of autistic trait expression in Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC). Two studies were conducted, exploratory (14 ASC, 15 TD) and replication (29 ASC, 29 TD), using resting-state fMRI data and the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) from the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange repository. Dynamic Independent Component Analysis was performed in both datasets using the CONN toolbox. An additional sliding-window analysis was performed in the replication study to explore different connectivity states (from highly negatively to highly positively correlated). Dynamic FC was reduced in ASC compared to TD adults in both the exploratory and replication datasets and was associated with increased SRS scores (especially in ASC). Regression analyses revealed that decreased SRS autistic expression was predicted by engagement of highly negatively correlated states, while engagement of highly positively correlated states predicted increased expression. These findings provided consistent evidence that the difficulties observed in ASC are associated with altered patterns of dFC between brain regions subserving attention reorienting and ToM processes and may serve as a biomarker of autistic trait expression.

Social processes and social environment during development

Social behavior involves many processes including cognitive functions. Altered social behaviors associated with many psychiatric disorders might have alterations in the processes. Poor social environment affects development and maturation of cognitive functions that are important for social cognition, possibly introducing social stress as well as vulnerability to the stress into the developing brain. Adolescence and early adulthood have higher sensitivity to social stress, which may be linked to the onset of psychiatric disorders during this time period. Understanding social behavioral processes in detail will be crucial for elucidating mechanisms of emerging the social behavior phenotypes in psychiatric disorders and for devising therapeutic and preventive interventions to introduce the resilience for the onset of psychiatric disorders through modulation of social circuitries.