TY - JOUR
T1 - Neural substrates underlying effortful control deficit in autism spectrum disorder
T2 - a meta-analysis of fMRI studies
AU - Krishnamurthy, Karthikeyan
AU - Chan, Melody M.Y.
AU - Han, Yvonne M.Y.
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was supported by the Internal Research Fund (P0039387) from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China. We thank the donors for their support in this project.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).
PY - 2022/11/29
Y1 - 2022/11/29
N2 - Effortful control comprises attentional control, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility subprocesses. Effortful control is impaired in individuals with autism spectrum disorder, yet its neural underpinnings remain elusive. By conducting a coordinate-based meta-analysis, this study compared the brain activation patterns between autism and typically developing individuals and examined the effect of age on brain activation in each effortful control subprocesses. Meta-analytic results from 22 studies revealed that, individuals with autism showed hypoactivation in the default mode network for tasks tapping inhibitory control functioning (threshold-free cluster enhancement p < 0.001). When these individuals perform tasks tapping attentional control and cognitive flexibility, they exhibited aberrant activation in various brain networks including default mode network, dorsal attention, frontoparietal, visual and somatomotor networks (uncorrected ps < 0.005). Meta-regression analyses revealed that brain regions within the default mode network showed a significant decreasing trend in activation with increasing age (uncorrected p < 0.05). In summary, individuals with autism showed aberrant activation patterns across multiple brain functional networks during all cognitive tasks supporting effortful control, with some regions showing a decrease in activation with increasing age.
AB - Effortful control comprises attentional control, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility subprocesses. Effortful control is impaired in individuals with autism spectrum disorder, yet its neural underpinnings remain elusive. By conducting a coordinate-based meta-analysis, this study compared the brain activation patterns between autism and typically developing individuals and examined the effect of age on brain activation in each effortful control subprocesses. Meta-analytic results from 22 studies revealed that, individuals with autism showed hypoactivation in the default mode network for tasks tapping inhibitory control functioning (threshold-free cluster enhancement p < 0.001). When these individuals perform tasks tapping attentional control and cognitive flexibility, they exhibited aberrant activation in various brain networks including default mode network, dorsal attention, frontoparietal, visual and somatomotor networks (uncorrected ps < 0.005). Meta-regression analyses revealed that brain regions within the default mode network showed a significant decreasing trend in activation with increasing age (uncorrected p < 0.05). In summary, individuals with autism showed aberrant activation patterns across multiple brain functional networks during all cognitive tasks supporting effortful control, with some regions showing a decrease in activation with increasing age.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85142917873&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41598-022-25051-2
DO - 10.1038/s41598-022-25051-2
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 36446840
AN - SCOPUS:85142917873
SN - 2045-2322
VL - 12
JO - Scientific Reports
JF - Scientific Reports
IS - 1
M1 - 20603
ER -