Restricted, Repetitive, and Stereotypical Patterns of Behavior in Autism-an fMRI Perspective

The main objective of this paper is to determine whether resting-state fMRI can identify functional connectivity differences between individuals with autism who experience severe issues with restricted, repetitive, and stereotypical behaviors, those who experience only mild issues, and controls. We use resting-state fMRI data from the ABIDE-I preprocessed repository, with participants grouped according to their ADI-R Restricted, Repetitive, and Stereotyped Patterns of Behavior Subscore. Three processing methods are used for analysis. A time-correlation approach establishes a basic baseline, and we introduce a method based on sliding time windows, with means across time adjusted to consider the fraction of time the correlation measure is above/below average. We complement these with a band-limited coherence approach. For completeness, preprocessing schemes with and without global signal regression are considered. Our results are in line with recent ones which find both over- and under-connectivities in the autistic brain. We find that there are indeed significant differences in connectivity between various regions that differentiate between ASD subjects with severe stereotypical/restrictive behavior issues, those with only mild issues, and controls. Interestingly, for some regions, the "signature" of subjects in the milder of the ASD groups appears to be distinct (i.e., over- or under-connected) relative to both the more severe ASD group and the controls.