Altered default mode network causal connectivity patterns in autism spectrum disorder revealed by Liang information flow analysis

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a pervasive developmental disorder with severe cognitive impairment in social communication and interaction. Previous studies have reported that abnormal functional connectivity patterns within the default mode network (DMN) were associated with social dysfunction in ASD. However, how the altered causal connectivity pattern within the DMN affects the social functioning in ASD remains largely unclear. Here, we introduced the Liang information flow method, widely applied to climate science and quantum mechanics, to uncover the brain causal network patterns in ASD. Compared with the healthy controls (HC), we observed that the interactions among the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dMPFC), ventral medial prefrontal cortex (vMPFC), hippocampal formation, and temporo-parietal junction showed more inter-regional causal connectivity differences in ASD. For the topological property analysis, we also found the clustering coefficient of DMN and the In-Out degree of anterior medial prefrontal cortex were significantly decreased in ASD. Furthermore, we found that the causal connectivity from dMPFC to vMPFC was correlated with the clinical symptoms of ASD. These altered causal connectivity patterns indicated that the DMN inter-regions information processing was perturbed in ASD. In particular, we found that the dMPFC acts as a causal source in the DMN in HC, whereas it plays a causal target in ASD. Overall, our findings indicated that the Liang information flow method could serve as an important way to explore the DMN causal connectivity patterns, and it also can provide novel insights into the nueromechanisms underlying DMN dysfunction in ASD.