Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) exhibit early and lifelong impairments in attention across multiple domains. While the disorder is known to affect attention processes, very little is currently known about the brain networks underlying attention in ASD, and even less is known about whether these atypicalities persist across the lifespan. We used functional connectivity analysis applied to resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data to explore the dorsal (DAN) and ventral (VAN) attention networks in two separate age cohorts of children and adults with and without ASD. We find significant developmental differences in functional connectivity of brain regions that are critical for attention in children and adults with ASD. Specifically, children with ASD show hyper-connectivity of regions-of-interest (ROIs) in both attention networks compared with both typically developing (TD) children and adults with ASD. In contrast, adults with ASD show hypo-connectivity of these networks compared with neurotypical adults. These findings are consistent with the notion that consideration of developmental stage is critical in studies of functional connectivity in ASD. This study further illustrates diverging developmental patterns for top-down and bottom-up attention systems in autism.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 15. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 20 February 2025.
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#2,957,398
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#38,764
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Outputs of similar age from Developmental Science
#12
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Altmetric has tracked 31,733,458 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 90th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,812 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 23.3. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 74% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 423,093 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 33 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 63% of its contemporaries.
