Resting-State Brain Network Dysfunctions Associated With Visuomotor Impairments in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Background: Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show elevated levels of motor variability that are associated with clinical outcomes. Cortical–cerebellar networks involved in visuomotor control have been implicated in postmortem and anatomical imaging studies of ASD. However, the extent to which these networks show intrinsic functional alterations in patients, and the relationship between intrinsic functional properties of cortical–cerebellar networks and visuomotor impairments in ASD have not yet been clarified. Methods: We examined the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) of cortical and cerebellar brain regions during resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) in 23 individuals with ASD and 16 typically developing (TD) controls. Regions of interest (ROIs) with ALFF values significantly associated with motor variability were identified for for patients and controls respectively, and their functional connectivity (FC) to each other and to the rest of the brain was examined. Results: For TD controls, greater ALFF in bilateral cerebellar crus I, left superior temporal gyrus, left inferior frontal gyrus, right supramarginal gyrus, and left angular gyrus each were associated with greater visuomotor variability. Greater ALFF in cerebellar lobule VIII was associated with less visuomotor variability. For individuals with ASD, greater ALFF in right calcarine cortex, right middle temporal gyrus (including MT/V5), left Heschl's gyrus, left post-central gyrus, right pre-central gyrus, and left precuneus was related to greater visuomotor variability. Greater ALFF in cerebellar vermis VI was associated with less visuomotor variability. Individuals with ASD and TD controls did not show differences in ALFF for any of these ROIs. Individuals with ASD showed greater posterior cerebellar connectivity with occipital and parietal cortices relative to TD controls, and reduced FC within cerebellum and between lateral cerebellum and pre-frontal and other regions of association cortex. Conclusion: Together, these findings suggest that increased resting oscillations within visuomotor networks in ASD are associated with more severe deficits in controlling variability during precision visuomotor behavior. Differences between individuals with ASD and TD controls in the topography of networks showing relationships to visuomotor behavior suggest atypical patterns of cerebellar–cortical specialization and connectivity in ASD that underlies previously documented visuomotor deficits.

Getting Off to a Shaky Start: Specificity in Planning and Feedforward Control During Sensorimotor Learning in Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…Whilst we do not report neurobehavioural data, one can speculate that the specificity in feedforward and feedbackbased differences might (in part) be related to the cerebellum and basal ganglia [Doyon et al, 2009;Shadmehr & Krakauer, 2008]. fMRI data ] collected whilst executing a motor control task (i.e., the PANESS task) showed that autistic individuals exhibited decreased cerebellar activity, and increased pre-motor cortex activity, compared to controls (see also Wang et al, 2019). This is perhaps not surprising given the well-reported structural (e.g., lower Purkinje cell count, Ritvo et al, 1986;hypoplasia, Courchesne, Yeung-Courchesne, Hesselink, & Jernigan, 1988) and functional (e.g., greater spatial extent and magnitude of activation in ipsilateral anterior cerebellum; Allen et al, 2004] differences found in the autistic cerebellum (see Amaral, Schumann, & Nordahl, 2008;Oldehinkel et al, 2019).…”

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder Show Impairments During Dynamic Versus Static Grip‐force Tracking

“…Supporting the hypothesis that low‐frequency force oscillations originate from higher‐level cortical regions, Lodha et al [2013] showed that visuomotor grip‐force oscillations in stroke patients contain increased low‐frequency power <0.5 Hz in their paretic versus non‐paretic hand, whereas controls showed no differences in low‐frequency force oscillations <0.5 Hz between hands [Lodha et al, 2013]. Furthermore, Wang et al [2019] showed that low‐frequency oscillations within the visuomotor network was associated with increased force variability in individuals with ASD. Therefore, low‐frequency force oscillations may be associated with low‐frequency fluctuations of activity in visuomotor brain regions activated during grip‐force tracking.…”

“…Previous studies show that static force oscillations below 0.5 Hz originate from higher centers [Lodha, Misra, Coombes, Christou, & Cauraugh, 2013], are associated with increased variability of force output during visuomotor grip‐force tracking tasks [Lodha & Christou, 2017; Moon et al, 2014; Park, Kim, Yacoubi, & Christou, 2019], and are amplified when visual feedback error is removed [Fox et al, 2013]. Increased force oscillations below 0.5 Hz during a grip‐force task may reflect deficits within the visuomotor network [Wang et al, 2019] that may also be associated with force tracking accuracy.…”

Functional connectivities of the right temporoparietal junction and moral network predict social framing effect: Evidence from resting-state fMRI

“…。例如, 当研究者把一项社会性决 策任务命名为"社区游戏"时, 与"华尔街游戏" 这个 名称相比, 被试的合作程度会显著提高 (Liberman et al, 2004) (Takeuchi et al, 2012;Zeng et al, 2012; 江琦 等, 2018)。 静息态时的功能连接模式与 任务态时的激活模式相似度近 80% (Biswal et al, 1995;Cole et al, 2016)。值得注意的是, 静息态功 能连接不仅被用来探索感知觉 (Lewis et al, 2009;Taubert et al, 2011), 注意等认知功能上的个体差 异 (Mennes et al, 2010;Posner et al, 2014), 还被用 (Biswal et al, 1995;Fox et al, 2005); 且不同脑区之间的功能连接强度 及连接模式与健康个体的认知能力 (Lewis et al, 2009)及社会性特征 (Nostro et al, 2018;Wang et al, 2019) participants to make a tradeoff between economic benefits and the feelings of others; when participants showed a stronger preference for income maximization, the probability for their partners to receive a painful electrical shock would increase proportionally. This decision was described as either a "harm" to, or simply "not helping" other persons in two frame conditions.…”