Reduced inter-subject functional connectivity during movies in autism: replicability across cross-national fMRI datasets - UTU Research Portal

A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal

Reduced inter-subject functional connectivity during movies in autism: replicability across cross-national fMRI datasets

Authors: Lin, Feng; Albantakis, Laura; Noppari, Tuomo; Santavirta, Severi; Brandi, Marie-Luise; Sun, Lihua; Lukkarinen, Lasse; Tani, Pekka; Salmi, Juha; Nummenmaa, Lauri; Dukart, Juergen; Schilbach, Leonhard; Lahnakoski, Juha M.

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Publication year: 2026

Journal: Molecular autism

Article number: 11

Volume: 17

Issue: 1

eISSN: 2040-2392

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13229-026-00707-2

Publication's open availability at the time of reporting: Open Access

Publication channel's open availability : Open Access publication channel

Web address : https://doi.org/10.1186/s13229-026-00707-2

Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/515746061

Self-archived copy's licence: CC BY

Self-archived copy's version: Publisher`s PDF

Abstract

Background

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by repetitive behaviors and difficulties in social communication and interaction. Previous research has shown that these symptoms are linked to idiosyncratic behavioral and brain activity patterns while viewing natural social events in movies. This study aimed to investigate the replicability of brain activity idiosyncrasy in adult autistic individuals by comparing their inter-subject functional connectivity (ISFC) with that of neurotypical individuals.

Methods

We tested for ISFC differences between adult autistic and neurotypical groups using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from two independent datasets from Germany (N_neurotypical = 25, 7 Males, 18 Females; N_autism = 22, 12 Males, 10 Females) and Finland (N_neurotypical = 19, N_autism = 18; All males). Participants watched short movie stimuli, and pairwise ISFCs were computed across 273 brain regions. Group differences were evaluated using subject-wise permutation tests for each dataset.

Results

In both datasets, the autistic group showed lower ISFCs compared to the neurotypical group, specifically between visual regions (e.g., occipital gyrus, cuneus) and parietal regions (e.g., superior and inferior parietal lobules), as well as between visual regions and frontal regions (e.g., inferior frontal gyrus, precentral gyrus). ISFC was higher in the Finnish autistic group in temporal regions associated with sound and speech processing.

Limitations

Larger multi-site datasets using diverse analysis pipelines are needed to evaluate the robustness and replicability of current findings. They are also essential for evaluating the reliability of the subject-wise permutation method without explicit correction for multiple comparisons.

Conclusions

The study confirmed the replicability of reduced ISFCs in adult autistic individuals during naturalistic movie-watching, especially between visual and parietal/frontal brain regions. These findings reinforce the utility of ISFC and naturalistic movie-watching paradigm in studying neural connectivity alterations in autism.

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Funding information in the publication:
Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. This work was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF; Grant No. 01GP2203A [to FL]), the Finnish Cultural Foundation (Grant No. 150496 [to JML]), the Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation, Sigrid Jusélius Foundation and Signe och Ane Gyllenberg Foundation (to LN), and the Independent Max-Planck-Research Group by the Max-Planck-Society (to LSc).