Temporal Stability of the Dynamic Brain Network Negatively Correlates with age in Children Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Resting-State fMRI Study

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a common neurodevelopmental condition. However, the dynamic temporal stability of functional connectivity (FC) in resting state networks remains unclear. In this study, we investigated temporal stability using the standard deviations of Clustering Coefficients (CC) and Characteristic Path Length (CPL). Subsequently, we examined the correlation between temporal stability and age. Our analysis revealed significant differences in temporal stability values of both CC and CPL between individuals with ASD and the healthy control (HC) group. Moreover, a notable negative correlation between temporal stability values and age was specifically identified in individuals with ASD. These findings indicate a close association between temporal stability and age in ASD, suggesting its potential role as a biomarker to aid in the diagnosis of ASD.