ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Autism
Changes in Regional Homogeneity of the social brain in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder after social skills training
Provisionally accepted
Yulu Yang1,2
Hui Wang1Siuching Kat1Zeng-Hui Ma1Ting-Ni Yin1Ya-Jing Sun1Xin-Zhou Tang1Xiao-Yun Gong1Duo Wang1Lei Li1Xue Li1*
Jing Liu1*- 1Peking University Sixth Hospital, Beijing, China
- 2West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
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This study examined changes in regional homogeneity (ReHo) following Social Skills Training (SST) and their association with improvements in social deficits in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). 44 adolescents and adults with ASD (aged 12-30) were recruited, 38 participants (20 in training group, 18 in control group, matched for sex, age, and IQ) were retained after quality control of MRI data. The training group underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans and assessments of Aberrant Behavior Checklist (ABC) and Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) before and after a 14-week SST program, while the control group completed the same MRI scans and assessments at the same time point but did not receive SST. Resting-state functional MRI analyses revealed significant group × condition interactions in five social brain regions, including the right medial frontal gyrus, right insula, and left medial superior frontal gyrus. At the endpoint of SST, the training group showed reduced ReHo in these regions alongside significant decreases in scores of ABC total, social withdrawal factor, SRS total, social awareness, social cognition, social communication factors. The control group, in contrast, showed only limited improvements on specific subscales, while the training group demonstrated a broader pattern of behavioral gains. We also found an exploratory association between the decrease in ReHo of the right medial frontal gyrus and the reduction in the ABC total score in training group. These findings indicate that SST may modulate local functional connectivity within the social brain networks, and these connectivity changes may correlate with observed behavioral improvements.
Keywords: Autism Spectrum Disorder, brain mechanism, Regionalhomogeneity, Social brain network, Social skill training
Received: 28 Jul 2025; Accepted: 09 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Yang, Wang, Kat, Ma, Yin, Sun, Tang, Gong, Wang, Li, Li and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Xue Li
Jing Liu
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