Objective

Preliminary evidence has documented functional connectivity during the cognitive task in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). However, evidence of effective neural connectivity with respect to information flow between different brain regions during complex tasks is missing. The present paper aims to provide insights into the cognition-based neural dynamics reflecting information exchange in brain network under cognitive load in ASD.

Methods

Twenty-two individuals with ASD (8–18 years) and 18 Typically Developing (TD; 6–17 years) individuals participated in the cognitive task of differentiating risky from neutral stimuli. The Conditional Entropy (CE) technique is applied upon task-activated Electroencephalogram (EEG) to measure the causal influence of the activity of brain’s one Region of interest (ROI) over another.

Results

A higher CE in frontal ROI and left hemisphere reflected atypical brain complexity in ASD. The absence of causal effect, poor Coupling Strength (CS; measured using CE) and hemisphere lateralization is responsible for lower cognition in ASD. However, the persistent information exchange during the task reflects the existence of certain alternative paths when other direct paths remained disconnected due to cognitive impairment. The Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier showed that CE can identify the atypical information exchange with an accuracy of 96.89% and area under curve = 0.987.

Discussion

The statistical results reflect a significant change in the information flow between different ROIs in ASD. A correlation of CS and behavioral domain suggests that the cognitive decline could be predicted from the connectivity patterns. Thus, CS could be a potential biomarker to identify cognitive status at a higher discrimination rate in ASD.

中文翻译：

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条件熵方法分析自闭症谱系障碍的认知动力学。

目的

初步证据证明自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的认知任务过程中存在功能连通性。但是，缺少有关复杂任务期间不同大脑区域之间信息流的有效神经连接的证据。本文旨在提供对基于认知的神经动力学的见解，该动力学反映了在ASD认知负荷下大脑网络中的信息交换。

方法

22名具有ASD的个体（8-18岁）和18名典型的发育性（TD； 6-17岁）个体参与了区分风险与中性刺激的认知任务。条件熵（CE）技术应用于任务激活的脑电图（EEG），以测量大脑一个感兴趣区域（ROI）的活动对另一个感兴趣区域的因果影响。

结果

额叶ROI和左半球的较高CE反映了ASD中非典型的大脑复杂性。没有因果关系，较差的耦合强度（CS；使用CE测量）和半球偏侧化是导致ASD认知降低的原因。但是，任务期间的持久性信息交换反映了当其他直接路径由于认知障碍而保持断开状态时某些替代路径的存在。支持向量机（SVM）分类器表明，CE可以识别非典型信息交换，准确度为96.89％，曲线下面积= 0.987。

讨论区

统计结果反映了ASD中不同ROI之间信息流的显着变化。CS和行为领域的相关性表明认知衰退可以从连接模式中预测。因此，CS可能是在ASD中以较高的识别率识别认知状态的潜在生物标志物。