A Preliminary Study of Abnormal Centrality of Cortical Regions and Subsystems in Whole Brain Functional Connectivity of Autism Spectrum Disorder Boys

Abstract

The abnormal cortices of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) brains are uncertain. However, the pathological alterations of ASD brains are distributed throughout interconnected cortical systems. Functional connections (FCs) methodology identifies cooperation and separation characteristics of information process in macroscopic cortical activity patterns under the context of network neuroscience. Embracing the graph theory concepts, this paper introduces eigenvector centrality index (EC score) ground on the FCs, and further develops a new framework for researching the dysfunctional cortex of ASD in holism significance. The important process is to uncover noticeable regions and subsystems endowed with antagonistic stance in EC-scores of 26 ASD boys and 28 matched healthy controls (HCs). For whole brain regional EC scores of ASD boys, orbitofrontal superior medial cortex, insula R, posterior cingulate gyrus L, and cerebellum 9 L are endowed with different EC scores significantly. In the brain subsystems level, EC scores of DMN, prefrontal lobe, and cerebellum are aberrant in the ASD boys. Generally, the EC scores display widespread distribution of diseased regions in ASD brains. Meanwhile, the discovered regions and subsystems, such as MPFC, AMYG, INS, prefrontal lobe, and DMN, are engaged in social processing. Meanwhile, the CBCL externalizing problem scores are associated with EC scores.