Speaker
Description
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show impairments in communication and social interaction and patterns of restricted and stereotyped behaviors and interests. Literature suggests that alterations of functional connectivity (FC) in brain networks may contribute to the manifestation of the clinical features of ASD. In our study, we focused on the Salience Network (SN), as playing a crucial role in the integration of external sensory information with internal emotional and bodily information. Using the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange II we investigated the resting-state FC of the target structures of the SN and its association with autism symptomatology in 29 ASD individuals compared with 29 typically developing (TD) individuals. Our seed-based connectivity results indicate alterations, both in increased and decreased FC, in the ASD group compared to TD individuals, involving brain regions implicated in the integration of sensory and social information, regulation of attention, emotion processing, and internal states. Finally, we found that the clinical features of ASD are mainly associated with an atypical FC of the anterior insula and the engagement of dysfunctional mechanisms for emotional and social information processing. These findings expand the knowledge about the differences in the FC of SN between ASD and TD, highlighting atypical FC between structures that play key roles in social cognition and complex cognitive processes. Such anomalies could explain difficulties in processing salient stimuli, especially those of a socio-affective nature, with an impact on emotional and behavioral regulation.
| If you're submitting a symposium talk, what's the symposium title? | Psychophysiological Markers in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Current Evidence and Clinical Perspectives |
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| If you're submitting a symposium, or a talk that is part of a symposium, is this a junior symposium? | Yes |
