Atypical neural synchronization in the temporal gyrus during face processing in children with autism spectrum...

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by deficits in face processing, which are closely related to difficulties in everyday social interactions. Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have relied on static or simplified dynamic facial stimuli with limited ecological validity, failing to reflect the complex interplay of speech, expressions, and multimodal cues in real-world social contexts. To address these limitations, we used data from the Healthy Brain Network (HBN), which includes two movie-watching runs per participant, and selected homogeneous samples of 18 children with ASD and 18 typically developing (TD) children. Inter-subject correlation (ISC) analysis was applied to compare neural synchronization patterns between groups across the full movie and face-viewing scenes. Results showed that children with ASD exhibited reduced neural synchronization across widespread brain regions compared to TD children. Notably, during face-viewing scenes, children with ASD revealed reduced neural synchrony relative to TD children in the left middle temporal gyrus, right superior temporal gyrus, and right primary auditory cortex. These findings suggest that children with ASD exhibit atypical neural responses in key regions involved in social cognition and multisensory integration when processing face-related information. This underscores the importance of extended regions related to face processing in understanding ASD. Accordingly, the present study contributes to our understanding of neural synchrony patterns associated with face processing in ASD.