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Updated: Jul 10, 2026
Probing the Brain in Autism Using fMRI and Diffusion Tensor Imaging
Published on: September 12, 2011
Abnormalities in brain complexity in children with autism spectrum disorder: a sleeping state functional MRI study
Shishun Fu1, Xiang Wang1, Ziwei Chen2
1Department of Radiology, The Central Hospital of Wuhan, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
Background And Objective:
The theory of complexity loss in neurodivergent brain is widely acknowledged. However, the findings of autism research do not seem to align well with this theory. We aim to investigate the brain complexity in children with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders) compared with the TD (Typical Developed) children in sleeping state.
Method:
42 ASD children and 42 TD children were imaged using sleep-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (ss-fMRI), and brain complexity was analyzed by employing sample entropy (SampEn) and transfer entropy (TE). For the ASD group, we also investigated the relationship of symptom severity with SampEn and with TE.
Results:
In compared with TD group, ASD group showed significant increased SampEn in the right inferior frontal gyrus. However, in the group of TD, 13 pairs of brain regions exhibit higher TE compared to the ASD group. In the ASD group, the TE of 5 pairs of brain regions is higher than in the TD group.
Conclusion:
This sleeping-state fMRI study provide evidence that ASD children exhibited aberrant brain complexity in compare with the TD children. The complexity of the autistic brain is composed of aberrant randomness in brain activity and anomalous information transmission between brain regions. We believe that brain complexity in ASD is a highly valuable area of research. Differences in the entropy of local brain regions, as well as in the transfer entropy between brain regions, may be related to the brain complexity observed in children with ASD.
