IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/chsofr/v208y2026ip2s0960077926003085.html

Sex- and age-related heterogeneity of phase-based dynamic functional connectivity in autism spectrum disorder

Author

Listed:
  • Gao, Le
  • An, Hairui
  • Yin, Liyong
  • Ma, Lina
  • Niu, Xiaoxia
  • Guo, Xiaonan

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by atypical brain functional organization, which may vary depending on sex and age. This study aimed to explore how sex and age influence dynamic functional connectivity (dFC) in ASD. This study analyzed resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data from 349 individuals with ASD (284 males/65 females) and 459 typically developing controls (340 males/119 females). A phase-based dFC analysis was first performed to extract time-varying functional brain organization. The Leading Eigenvectors Dynamics Analysis was then used to reduce the dimensionality of dFC, and K-means clustering was conducted to obtain dFC states. The permutation-based three-way analysis of variance was finally used to investigate sex- and age-related changes in ASD. This study identified three dFC states and sex-specific developmental trajectories of dFC were observed in different cognitive-related states in ASD. Moreover, sex- and age-related dFC alterations in individuals with ASD were primarily distributed in the default mode network across all three states. In addition, the state-specific dFC alterations can predict different clinical symptoms in males and females with ASD. These findings demonstrate sex- and age-related heterogeneity of functional connectivity dynamics in ASD, offering phase-based insights into the neural mechanisms underlying the disorder.

Suggested Citation

  • Gao, Le & An, Hairui & Yin, Liyong & Ma, Lina & Niu, Xiaoxia & Guo, Xiaonan, 2026. "Sex- and age-related heterogeneity of phase-based dynamic functional connectivity in autism spectrum disorder," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 208(P2).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:chsofr:v:208:y:2026:i:p2:s0960077926003085
    DOI: 10.1016/j.chaos.2026.118167
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960077926003085
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.chaos.2026.118167?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:chsofr:v:208:y:2026:i:p2:s0960077926003085. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Thayer, Thomas R. (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/chaos-solitons-and-fractals .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.