Atypical White Matter Amplitude of Low Frequency Fluctuation in Autsim – A Multivariate Pattern Analysis Study

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a type of neurodevelopmental disorder with unclear neuro-mechanism, which hinders the development of objective biomarkers for diagnosis. Previous studies have shown atypical grey matter function in individuals with ASD using the Amplitude of Low Frequency Fluctuation (ALFF) method. However, the white matter function is still unclear in ASD. In present study, resting state fMRI data from 64 individuals with ASD and 64 matched Healthy Controls (HC) were utilized. We calculated the amplitude of low frequency fluctuation of white matter of all subjects, then a searchlight Multivariate Pattern Analysis (MVPA) method was performed on these ALFF maps. Comparing with the HC group, the ASD showed atypical ALFF mainly in four white matter regions, which located at splenium of corpus callosum, body of corpus callosum, cingulum and anterior thalamic radiation. Meanwhile, the body of corpus callosum region could achieve the ASD/HC classification accuracy of 71.88%. The present study revealed atypical white matter function in ASD and showed the potential of white matter ALFF to become a diagnostic biomarker for ASD.