Fig. 3

Network analysis reveals that select edges show a significantly diminished density in ASD versus control groups, though not in overall mean density. a Mean density of ASD (blue, Asperger’s in green) and control (red) groups. In the training data, the mean density of the ASD group was significantly lower than the mean density of the control group (p ≤ 0.028). However, in the validation data no significant difference was found (p = 0.50). Error bars represent two standard errors of the mean. b In the training data, no significant difference in degree between ASD and control groups was found at any node location. c The “edge mask”. Edges in the mean control network which were significantly greater than the surrogate control distribution are shown in red (n = 23), while edges in the mean ASD network which were significantly lower than the surrogate ASD distribution are shown in blue (n = 16). Seven edges (shown in orange) were found to distinguish both control from surrogate and ASD from surrogate, and were retrospectively used to form a mask of highly selective edges. d The mask density reveals a significant difference between the ASD group and the control group in training data, as expected (p ≤ 0.0019). The mask density of the ASD group was significantly lower than the mask density of the control group (p ≤ 0.0085) in the validation data as well. e In a retrospective study, the intersection mask density was computed. In both the training and validation data, the ASD intersection mask density was found to be significantly lower than the control intersection mask density (p ≤ 0.0163 in training data, p ≤ 0.0006 in validation data)