Analysis of structural network topology alterations in autism and its relationship with autism severity

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a public health concern ranging along a continuum of severity. The neurobiological motives behind ASD have been widely explored with reports about aberrant brain anatomy and functional connectivity. However, research on the underlying structural connectivity alterations is limited. We propose the application of a novel connectomic measure called Network Normality Score (NNS) to identify brain abnormalities and quantity topological dissimilarities in individuals with ASD. We show that the network topology of structural connectivity is altered in ASD brains relative to healthy controls at the global and system levels. We demonstrate that structural connectivity differences are more pronounced in certain subnetworks. Finally, we quantify the association between network similarity and behavioral autism severity to show the efficacy of NNS as a neuroimaging measure.