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. 2023 Jun 16:14:1132284.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1132284. eCollection 2023.

Social visual preference mediates the effect of cortical thickness on symptom severity in children with autism spectrum disorder

Jierong Chen #  1 , Zhen Wei #  1   2 , Chuangyong Xu  1 , Ziwen Peng  3 , Junjie Yang  4 , Guobin Wan  1 , Bin Chen  1 , Jianhua Gong  4 , Keying Zhou  5
Affiliations

Social visual preference mediates the effect of cortical thickness on symptom severity in children with autism spectrum disorder

Jierong Chen et al. Front Psychiatry. .

Abstract

Background: Evidence suggests that there is a robust relationship between altered neuroanatomy and autistic symptoms in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Social visual preference, which is regulated by specific brain regions, is also related to symptom severity. However, there were a few studies explored the potential relationships among brain structure, symptom severity, and social visual preference.

Methods: The current study investigated relationships among brain structure, social visual preference, and symptom severity in 43 children with ASD and 26 typically developing (TD) children (aged 2-6 years).

Results: Significant differences were found in social visual preference and cortical morphometry between the two groups. Decreased percentage of fixation time in digital social images (%DSI) was negatively related to not only the thickness of the left fusiform gyrus (FG) and right insula, but also the Calibrated Severity Scores for the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-Social Affect (ADOS-SA-CSS). Mediation analysis showed that %DSI partially mediated the relationship between neuroanatomical alterations (specifically, thickness of the left FG and right insula) and symptom severity.

Conclusion: These findings offer initial evidence that atypical neuroanatomical alterations may not only result in direct effects on symptom severity but also lead to indirect effects on symptom severity through social visual preference. This finding enhances our understanding of the multiple neural mechanisms implicated in ASD.

Keywords: autism spectrum disorder; mediation; neuroanatomy; social visual preference; symptom severity.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Results from whole-brain analysis of cortical metrics between ASD and TD peers, controlling for age and gender (corrected for multiple comparisons using Monte Carlo stimulations p < 0.005). Clusters surviving multiple comparison corrections are shown by red (ASD > TD) and blue (TD > ASD).
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
(A) Cortical thickness of left FG (red oval) and right insula (blue oval) exhibiting significant differences between TD and ASD. (B,C) Comparison of thickness in left FG and right insula between two groups. (D) Scatterplot of the correction between %DSI and ADOS-SA-CSS. (E,F) Scatterplot of the correction between thickness and %DSI. ADOS-SA-CSS, calibrated severity scores for the autism diagnostic observation schedule-social affect; %DSI, percentage of fixation time in digital social images. ***p < 0.005.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Mediation analysis showing total effect of cortical thickness on symptom severity (A,C) and indirect effect of %DSI (B,D), control for age and gender. *p < 0.05. B, unstandardized regression coefficient; SE, standard error; CI, confidence interval; β, standardized regression coefficient; ADOS-SA-CSS, calibrated severity scores for the autism diagnostic observation schedule-social affect; %DSI, percentage of fixation time in digital social images.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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