Altered task induced functional brain networks and small-world properties in autism

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
• Cognitive Neuroscience

Background:

• Facial emotion recognition (FER) relies on integrated brain region activity.
• Autistic individuals often face FER difficulties, linked to atypical brain connectivity.
• Underlying neural mechanisms of FER challenges in autism remain unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate task-induced functional brain networks in autistic and non-autistic adults during a complex FER task.
• To explore differences in time-varying whole-brain functional networks and small-world properties.

Main Methods:

• Examined electroencephalogram (EEG)-based functional brain networks in 19 autistic and 19 matched non-autistic adults.
• Analyzed differences in dynamic whole-brain functional networks during a FER task.
• Investigated task-induced small-world network properties.

Main Results:

• Significant differences in task-induced functional brain networks were observed between autistic and non-autistic adults.
• Autistic adults showed a shift in connectivity-based FER processing towards higher EEG frequency bands compared to controls.
• Altered whole-brain small-world properties were noted in autistic individuals during the FER task.

Conclusions:

• Findings suggest autistic individuals may prefer bottom-up processing or have altered top-down processing during FER.
• Altered functional brain network properties in autism may contribute to observed FER difficulties.
• Further research into the neural network basis of emotion processing in autism is warranted.