Abstract
BackgroundPrevious studies have demonstrated that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit dysfunction in the three attention systems (i.e., alerting, orienting, and executive control) as well as atypical relationships among these systems. Additionally, other studies have reported that individuals with subclinical but high levels of autistic traits show similar attentional tendencies to those observed in ASD. Based on these findings, it was hypothesized that autistic traits would affect the functions and relationships of the three attention systems in a general population. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was performed in 119 healthy adults to investigate relationships between autistic traits and within- and between-system functional connectivity (FC) among the three attention systems. Twenty-six regions of interest that were defined as components of the three attention systems by a previous task-based fMRI study were examined in terms of within- and between-system FC. We assessed autistic traits using the Autism-Spectrum Quotient.ResultsCorrelational analyses revealed that autistic traits were significantly correlated with between-system FC, but not with within-system FC.ConclusionsOur results imply that a high autistic trait level, even when subclinical, is associated with the way the three attention systems interact.
Highlights
Previous studies have demonstrated that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit dysfunction in the three attention systems as well as atypical relationships among these systems
Psychological data The mean ± standard deviation (SD) of the AutismSpectrum Quotient (AQ) scores in the present study was 18.4 ± 8.0, which was identical to the value observed in a study of the general population assessed using the Japanese version of the AQ [64]
There were no significant associations between the AQ scores and the within-system functional connectivity (FC) values
Summary
Previous studies have demonstrated that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit dysfunction in the three attention systems (i.e., alerting, orienting, and executive control) as well as atypical relationships among these systems. Other studies have reported that individuals with subclinical but high levels of autistic traits show similar attentional tendencies to those observed in ASD. EC is a multidimensional and relatively complex system that includes mental operations, such as divided attention and detecting and resolving conflicts, that are responsible for controlling behaviors and thoughts. These three systems work more efficiently when interacting with each other [13, 24, 67]
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