{
  "abstract": "Autism is a common neurodevelopmental condition with considerable between-person variability and unknown biological etiology. Diagnosis of autism in adults relies on measurement of performance (e.g., clinician rating of social behavior, standardized assessment of cognition) and self-report of autism features. Our prior work revealed a strong relationship between clinician ratings of social function in autism and in vivo measures of synaptic density as measured by [11C]UCB-J PET (Matuskey et al., 2025). However, it is not understood how the measured aspects of the autism phenotype index underlying biology. Here, in a sample of 12 autistic adults, we address this question by relating synaptic density imaging to a range of performance measures, such as cognition and face recognition, in contrast to self-report measures. Our results identify a dissociation between these measurement types in that synaptic density correlates strongly with measures of performance but shows virtually no relationship with self-report. These findings suggest that, while self-report and performance measures share variance in characterizing phenotypes in autism, they diverge when mapping onto the underlying biology. Results suggest that higher synaptic density may index a general mechanism that facilitates social and cognitive performance across a range of tasks. These data also indicate that performance and self-report measures are not interchangeable in capturing brain-behavior correspondences in autism, a finding that can guide measure selection in future biomarker studies and clinical research.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Center for Brain and Mind Health, Yale University, New Haven, CT; Child Study Center, Yale University, New Haven, CT"
  ],
  "article_type": "New results",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 9,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "A. J. Naples"
    },
    {
      "name": "S. Cayir"
    },
    {
      "name": "C. cukar-capizzi"
    },
    {
      "name": "J. M. Wolf"
    },
    {
      "name": "J. E. Mcclelland"
    },
    {
      "name": "E. C. Robertson"
    },
    {
      "name": "S. S. Sawant"
    },
    {
      "name": "D. Matuskey"
    },
    {
      "name": "J. McPartland"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/f8yc4x7cnzhtw.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.64898/2026.10.05.755105",
  "fulltext_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.05.755105v1.full",
  "id": "f8yc4x7cnzhtw",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.05.755105v1",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-NC-ND",
  "licence_label": "CC BY-NC-ND",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "biorxiv",
      "neuroscience"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "2805|Autism Spectrum Disorder Research"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7220737559",
  "pdf_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.05.755105v1.full.pdf",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-05",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/f8yc4x7cnzhtw.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:26:09Z",
      "native_id": "10.64898/2026.10.05.755105",
      "source": "biorxiv",
      "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.05.755105v2"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "biorxiv:neuroscience",
      "subfield": "neuroscience"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Synaptic density imaging associates with performance but not self-report in autism",
  "title_text": "Synaptic density imaging associates with performance but not self-report in autism",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:26:29Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/f8yc4x7cnzhtw",
  "venue": "bioRxiv",
  "versions": []
}