Li-Ting Liu1, Kayako Mastuo2, Yung-Chin Hsu3, Shur-Fen Susan Gau1, 4, Ay-Woan Pan1, 4, Wen-Yih Isaac Tseng5, 6
1Department of Occupational Therapy, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan; 2College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan; 3Department of Biomedical Engineering and Environmental Sciences, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan; 4Department of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan; 5Institute of Biomedical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan; 6Center for Optoelectronic Biomedicine, National Taiwan University College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan
We investigated the default mode network (DMN) in relation with social impairment in adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and typically developing (TD) counterparts (N=16, each). Social responsiveness scale (SRS) was used as a clinical behavioral index. Coherent activation in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) with the posterior cingulated cortex (PCC) was estimated using resting state fMRI. The DMN was clearly defined in both groups, but the MPFC co-activation with bilateral PCC was only found in TD. The negative correlation in SRS scores with the co-activation in the MPFC might possibly represent the severity of the autistic trait in adolescents.