Specific Functional Connectivity Patterns of Middle Temporal Gyrus Subregions in Children and Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

As one of the key regions in the “social brain” network, the middle temporal gyrus (MTG) has been widely reported to be associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but there have been contradictory results in terms of whether it shows hyperconnectivity or hypoconnectivity. Delineating roles of MTG at the subregional level may eliminate the observed inconsistencies and provide a new avenue to reveal the neurophysiologic mechanism of ASD. Thus, we first performed connectivity‐based parcellation using the BrainMap database to identify fine‐grained functional topography of the MTG. Then, the MTG subregions were used to investigate differences in the functional connectivity in children and adults with ASD using two data sets from Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange database. Four distinct subregions in the human left and right MTG were identified, including the anterior MTG (aMTG), middle‐anterior MTG (maMTG), middle‐posterior MTG, and posterior MTG (pMTG). The bilateral pMTG was more vulnerable in both children and adults with ASD than in the typically developing (TD) group, mainly showing hypoconnectivity with different brain regions. In addition, the bilateral aMTG and right maMTG also showed altered functional connectivity in adults with ASD compared to the TD group. Moreover, all these altered MTG subregions were mainly associated with social cognition and language, as revealed by functional characterization. Further correlation analyses also showed trends of association between altered connectivity of the left aMTG and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule scores in adults with ASD. Together, these results suggest a potential objective way to explore sub‐regional differences associated with such disorders. Autism Res 2020, 13: 410–422. © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Lay Summary Four distinct subregions in the human left and right middle temporal gyrus (MTG) were identified, including the anterior MTG (aMTG), middle‐anterior MTG (maMTG), middle‐posterior MTG, and posterior MTG (pMTG). The bilateral pMTG was more vulnerable in both children and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) than in the typically developing (TD) group, mainly showing hypoconnectivity with different brain regions. In addition, the bilateral aMTG and right maMTG also showed altered functional connectivity in adults with ASD compared to the TD group. Moreover, all these altered MTG subregions were mainly associated with social cognition and language, as revealed by functional characterization. Further correlation analyses also showed trends of association between altered connectivity of the left aMTG and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule scores in adults with ASD.

Abnormal Brain Regions in Two-Group Cross-Location Dynamics Model of Autism

“…Our findings suggest that disorganized processing of face stimuli is caused by the abnormal activation of the visual area of the brain. Multiple studies involving brain functional connectivity networks and behavioral experiments found that autism is abnormal in the inferior temporal gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, and fusiform gyrus, which supports our results in other ways [49]- [53]. In addition, there is evidence that visuospatial processing is related to the development of core autistic sociocommunicative impairments [54].…”

Static and Dynamic Changes of Amplitude of Low-Frequency Fluctuations in Cervical Discogenic Pain

“…The posterior MTG has been reported to be involved in social cognitive and language processing ( Xu et al, 2015 , 2019a ). The disrupted functional connectivity pattern of the posterior MTG is closely associated the autism spectrum disorder ( Xu et al, 2019b ). The sgACC is a key region for emotion, reward and decision making processing ( Johansen-Berg et al, 2008 ), and the structural abnormality has been identified in patients with chronic knee osteoarthritis pain ( Liao et al, 2018 ).…”

Right inferior frontal gyrus: An integrative hub in tonal bilinguals

“…Methodological issues may also limit our understanding of neural mechanism underlying lexical tone perception observed in native speakers of tonal languages. For instance, the dominant experimental design of event‐related fMRI might outperform the approach of resting‐state fMRI (rs‐fMRI) in capturing the real‐time neural activity in response to language stimuli, but barely reveals the intrinsic functional coupling of the language network when participants are idle (Pliatsikas & Luk, ; Van Dijk et al, ; Wang et al, ; Wang et al, ; Xu et al, ; Xu et al, ). Nemerous rs‐fMRI studies reveal that the intrinsic state of bilinguals could be altered by their linguistic experience (Berken, Chai, Chen, Gracco, & Klein, ; Gullifer et al, ; Kousaie, Chai, Sander, & Klein, ; Li et al, ).…”