Disrupted Resting-State Functional Connectivity in the Social Visual Pathway in Children With Autism Spectrum...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Developmental Psychology
• Clinical Psychology

Background:

• The social visual pathway processes dynamic social information, diverging from the dorsal pathway.
• This pathway runs from posterior to anterior portions of the superior temporal sulcus (STS).
• Understanding functional connectivity in this pathway is crucial for studying neurodevelopmental conditions like autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate resting-state functional connectivity within the social visual pathway in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) compared to typically developing (TD) children.
• To explore the relationship between functional connectivity in this pathway and social symptom severity in ASD.

Main Methods:

• Utilized resting-state functional connectivity analysis.
• Examined data from the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (ABIDE) repository.
• Compared connectivity patterns in the right hemisphere social visual pathway between children with ASD and TD children.

Main Results:

• Identified significant hypoconnectivity between the posterior and middle STS (pSTS-mSTS) in the right hemisphere of children with ASD compared to TD children.
• Observed a negative correlation between pSTS-mSTS connectivity and social symptom severity in ASD.
• Found that lower connectivity in this region correlated with higher social communication vulnerabilities in both ASD and TD groups.

Conclusions:

• A specific disruption in the right hemisphere social visual pathway may contribute to social difficulties in children with ASD.
• Hypoconnectivity in the pSTS-mSTS region is a potential neural marker for social challenges in autism spectrum disorder.
• These findings highlight the importance of the right social visual pathway in typical social development and its alterations in ASD.