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Abstract：
Understanding how function and structure are organized and their coupling with clinical traits in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a primary goal in network neuroscience research for ASD. Atypical brain functional networks and structures in individuals with ASD have been reported, but whether these associations show heterogeneous hierarchy modeling in adolescents and adults with ASD remains to be clarified. In this study, 176 adolescent and 74 adult participants with ASD without medication or comorbidities and sex, age matched healthy controls (HCs) from 19 research groups from the openly shared Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange II database were included. To investigate the relationship between the functional gradient, structural changes, and clinical symptoms of brain networks in adolescents and adults with ASD, functional gradient and voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analyses based on 1000 parcels defined by Schaefer mapped to Yeo\'s seven-network atlas were performed. Pearson\'s correlation was calculated between the gradient scores, gray volume and density, and clinical traits. The subsystem-level analysis showed that the second gradient scores of the default mode networks and frontoparietal network in patients with ASD were relatively compressed compared to adolescent HCs. Adult patients with ASD showed an overall compression gradient of 1 in the ventral attention networks. In addition, the gray density and volumes of the subnetworks showed no significant differences between the ASD and HC groups at the adolescent stage. However, adults with ASD showed decreased gray density in the limbic network. Moreover, numerous functional gradient parameters, but not VBM parameters, in adolescents with ASD were considerably correlated with clinical traits in contrast to those in adults with ASD. Our findings proved that the atypical changes in adolescent ASD mainly involve the brain functional network, while in adult ASD, the changes are more related to brain structure, including gray density and volume. These changes in functional gradients or structures are markedly correlated with clinical traits in patients with ASD. Our study provides a novel understanding of the pathophysiology of the structure-function hierarchy in ASD.
摘要：
了解自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）患者的功能和结构如何组织以及它们与临床特征的耦合是ASD网络神经科学研究的主要目标。已经报道了ASD患者的非典型脑功能网络和结构，但这些关联在ASD患者的青少年和成人中是否表现出异质性的层次结构模型还有待澄清.在这项研究中,176名青少年和74名成人参与者患有ASD，没有药物治疗或合并症和性别，纳入了公开共享的孤独症脑成像数据交换II数据库中19个研究组的年龄匹配健康对照(HCs).为了研究功能梯度之间的关系，结构变化,青少年和成人ASD的脑网络的临床症状，功能梯度和基于体素的形态计量学(VBM)分析基于1000个由Schaefer定义的包裹映射到Yeo的七网络地图集。皮尔逊的相关性是在梯度分数之间计算的，灰色体积和密度，和临床特征。子系统级分析表明，与青少年HC相比，ASD患者的默认模式网络和额叶网络的第二梯度得分相对压缩。成人ASD患者在腹侧注意网络中的总体压缩梯度为1。此外,在青少年阶段，ASD组和HC组之间的子网络的灰度密度和体积没有显着差异。然而,患有ASD的成年人在边缘网络中显示出灰色密度降低。此外，许多功能梯度参数，但不是VBM参数，与成人ASD患者相比,青少年ASD患者与临床特征显著相关.我们的研究结果证明，青少年ASD的非典型变化主要涉及脑功能网络，在成人ASD中，这些变化与大脑结构更相关，包括灰色密度和体积。这些功能梯度或结构的变化与ASD患者的临床特征显着相关。我们的研究提供了对ASD结构功能层次结构的病理生理学的新理解。
