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Changes in the topological organization of the default mode network in autism spectrum disorder

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Abstract

Neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is accompanied by abnormal functional and structural features in specific brain regions of the default mode network (DMN). However, little is known about the alterations of the topological organization and the functional connectivity (FC) of the DMN in ASD patients. Thirty-seven ASD patients and 38 healthy control (HC) participants underwent a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. Twenty DMN subregions were specifically selected to construct the DMN architecture. We applied graph theory approaches to the topological configuration and compare the FC patterns of the DMN. We then examined the relationships between the neuroimaging measures of the DMN and clinical characteristics in patients with ASD. The current study revealed that both the ASD and HC participants showed a small-world regimen in the DMN; however there were no significant differences in global network measures. Compared with the HC group, the ASD group exhibited significantly decreased nodal centralities in the bilateral anterior medial prefrontal cortex and increased nodal centralities in the right lateral temporal cortex and the right retrosplenial cortex. Patients with ASD displayed significantly reduced and increased FC within the DMN. Our findings demonstrated that ASD patients showed a pattern of disrupted FC metrics and nodal network metrics in the DMN, which could be a potential biomarker for objective ASD diagnoses and for the level of autism spectrum traits.

Highlights

  • We used graph theoretical approaches and functional connectivity (FC) to investigate the topological configuration and FC patterns of the DMN in ASD.

  • The current study revealed that both ASD and HC participants exhibited small-world regimes in the DMN, however there were no significant differences in global network measures.

  • The ASD group showed abnormal nodal centralities in the bilateral aMPFC, the right LTC and the Rsp of the DMN, and ASD was characterized by altered FC patterns, including decreased and increased FC within the DMN.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (ABIDE) II or the acquisition of the imaging data. We acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81571664, 81871323, 81801665), the National Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (2018B030311024), the Scientific Research General Project of Guangzhou Science Technology and Innovation Commission (201707010328), and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2016 M600145).

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  1. Liting Chen and Yunmi Chen contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Medical Imaging Center, First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China

    Liting Chen, Bin Zhang, Fei Wang, Jin Fang, Yueyue Li, Qiuyin Chen & Shuixing Zhang

  2. Department of Maternal and Child Health, School of Public Health, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China

    Yunmi Chen

  3. School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Huang Zheng

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  1. Liting Chen
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Chen, L., Chen, Y., Zheng, H. et al. Changes in the topological organization of the default mode network in autism spectrum disorder. Brain Imaging and Behavior 15, 1058–1067 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-020-00312-8

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