Metastability in EEG phase synchronization networks is associated with autistic traits in a neurotypical cohort

Authors

Izumiya, M., Okazaki, Y. O., Kitajo, K.

Abstract

Metastability is a fundamental dynamical property of large-scale brain networks and reflects the capacity of the brain to flexibly reorganize transient coordination patterns. In this study, we investigated whether metastable properties of resting-state electroencephalographic (EEG) phase synchronization networks are associated with individual differences in autistic traits. Resting-state EEG data from 88 neurotypical adults were analyzed using two complementary metrics: synchrony coalition entropy (SCE), which quantifies the diversity of transient phase synchronization patterns, and the metastability index (MSI), which quantifies temporal variance in global phase synchronization. SCE showed frequency-specific associations with the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) attention-switching subscore at 18-24 Hz and the communication subscore at 4-8 Hz, suggesting that frequency- and network-specific patterns of metastable synchronization are associated with distinct aspects of autistic traits. In contrast, MSI showed a modest association with the social-skill subscore in the lower-beta range, but this effect did not survive a cluster-based permutation test. This exploratory observation suggests that global synchronization variability may capture a weaker, complementary aspect of trait-related metastable dynamics. These findings suggest that, within a neurotypical population, individual differences in autistic traits may be more sensitively captured by the repertoire of transient phase synchronization patterns, as indexed by SCE, than by global phase synchronization variability, as indexed by MSI. Moreover, the associations of distinct AQ subscores with SCE in different frequency ranges suggest that different dimensions of autistic traits may be related to metastable network dynamics operating at different temporal scales.

Preprint server: bioRxiv
The authors list and abstract were imported from bioRxiv on 15 Aug 2026.

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