Single-Stimulus Functional MRI Produces a Neural Individual Difference Measure for Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Functional MRI typically makes inferences about neural substrates of cognitive phenomena at the group level. We report the use of a single-stimulus blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) response in the cingulate cortex that differentiates individual children with autism spectrum disorder from matched typically developing control children with sensitivity and specificity of 63.6% and 73.7%, respectively. The approach consists of passive viewing of self and other faces from which an individual difference measure is derived from the BOLD response to the first self-face image only. The method, penalized logistic regression, requires no averaging over stimulus presentations or individuals. These findings show that single-stimulus functional MRI responses can be extracted from individual subjects and used profitably as a neural individual difference measure. The results suggest that single-stimulus functional MRI can be developed to produce quantitative neural biomarkers for other developmental disorders and may even be useful in the rapid typing of cognition in healthy individuals.