TY - JOUR T1 - Subtypes of functional connectivity associate robustly with ASD diagnosis JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/2020.04.14.040576 SP - 2020.04.14.040576 AU - Sebastian G. Urchs AU - Angela Tam AU - Pierre Orban AU - Clara Moreau AU - Yassine Benhajali AU - Hien Duy Nguyen AU - Alan C. Evans AU - Pierre Bellec Y1 - 2020/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/04/15/2020.04.14.040576.abstract N2 - Our understanding of the changes in functional brain organization in autism is hampered by the extensive heterogeneity that characterizes this neurodevelopmental disorder. Data driven clustering offers a straightforward way to decompose this heterogeneity into subtypes of distinguishable connectivity types and promises an unbiased framework to investigate behavioural symptoms and causative genetic factors. Yet the robustness and generalizability of these imaging subtypes is unknown. Here, we show that unsupervised functional connectivity subtypes are moderately associated with the clinical diagnosis of autism, and that these associations generalize to independent replication data. We found that subtypes identified robust patterns of functional connectivity, but that a discrete assignment of individuals to these subtypes was not supported by the data. Our results support the use of data driven subtyping as a data dimensionality reduction technique, rather than to establish clinical categories.Competing Interest Statement ER -