A pattern of local or short-distance “over-connectivity” and long-range under-connectivity is frequently hypothesized in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Little is known about the spatiotemporal characterization of structural short-distance connections in typically developing (TD) children or children with ASD. We hypothesized that altered trajectories of short-range association fibers (SAF) are not uniform across the brain regions, with abnormal maturation primarily observed in higher-order but not in primary sensory brain regions in children in ASD. Here, we quantified SAF with a novel index defined as normalized SAF (NSAF) based on diffusion MRI tractography, and characterized its trajectories across brain regions.
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