Table 1.

Summary of studies utilizing MRI pre- and post-rehabilitative treatment of ASD patients.

	Bölte et al., 2006	Voos et al., 2013	Ventola et al., 2015	Murdaugh et al., 2015	Bölte et al., 2015	Murdaugh et al., 2016
Study type	Randomized cross-over trial	Case series	Uncontrolled pre-post trial	Randomized cross-over trial	Non-randomized parallel group trial	Randomized cross-over trial
Center	Frankfurt University, Germany	Yale University, USA	Yale University, USA	University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA	Frankfurt University, Germany	University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA
Number of ASD patients in the active group	5 males	2 (1 male and 1 female)	10 (8 males)	16 (12 males)	16 males	13 (11 males)
Controls	5 ASD males	No	5 TD (2 males)	15 ASD (12 males) and 22 TD (16 males)	16 ASD (14 males) and 25 TD (21 males)	13 ASD (10 males) and 19 TD (14 males)
Mean age of ASD patients	29.4 years	~5 years	~5 years	10.3 years	19.3 years	10.9 years
ID in ASD patients	No	No	No	No	No	No
MRI technique	fMRI (facial affect recognition task)	fMRI (social perception task)	fMRI (social perception task)	rs-fMRI	fMRI (facial affect recognition task)	fMRI (sentence comprehension task) and rs-fMRI
Type of treatment	Computer-based facial affect recognition training	PRT	PRT	Reading intervention	Computer-based facial affect recognition training	Reading intervention
Duration of treatment	2 h per week for 5 weeks	8–10 h per week for 4 months	7 h per week for 16 weeks	20 h per week for 10 weeks	1 h per week for 8 weeks	20 h per week for 10 weeks
Clinical outcome(s) in the active group	Improvements in facial affect recognition	Improvement on ADOS, CELF-4, and Vineland-II scores	Improvement on SRS-2 and ADOS scores	Improvement in reading comprehension, as measured by the GORT-4 Comprehension subtest	Improvements in facial affect recognition	Improvement in reading comprehension, as measured by the GORT-4 Comprehension subtest
MRI outcome(s) in the active group	Increased activation in the R superior parietal lobule and maintained activation in the R medial occipital gyrus	Different increased activation in the two patients: L dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and L fusiform gyrus in one subject, R posterior superior temporal sulcus, L ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and bilateral fusiform gyri in the other patient	5 ASD patients showed significant increased activation in R posterior superior temporal sulcus, ventral striatum, and putamen; 5 ASD patients showed significant decreased activation in R posterior superior temporal sulcus, thalamus, amygdala, and hippocampus	Enhanced connectivity of Broca's area with R middle frontal gyrus, R superior temporal gyrus, L supramarginal gyrus, and R caudate; reduced connectivity of Broca's area with R middle occipital gyrus and R posterior cingulate cortex	Increased activation in amygdala, fusiform gyrus, and temporal pole bilaterally, medial prefrontal cortex, and L posterior superior temporal sulcus	Increased activation in brain regions underlying language and visuospatial processing, bilateral insula, R postcentral gyrus, and compensatory recruitment of R-hemisphere and subcortical regions
						Increased functional connectivity between L middle temporal gyrus and L frontal regions
					Enhanced connectivity of Wernicke's area with R anterior cingulate, L middle orbital gyrus, bilateral inferior frontal gyrus, R middle frontal gyrus, R middle cingulate, R precentral gyrus
Follow-up period	No	No	No	No	No	No

ASD, Autism Spectrum Disorders; MRI, Magnetic Resonance Imaging; DTI, Diffusion Tensor Imaging; fMRI, functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging; rs-fMRI, resting-state functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging; ID, intellectual disability; TD, controls with typical developing; PRT, Pivotal Response Treatment; CELF-4, Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals—Fourth Edition; ADOS, Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule; SRS-2, Social Responsiveness Scale-Second Edition; GORT-4, Gray Oral Reading Tests-4th Edition; R, right; L, left.