Differences in Cortical Structure and Functional MRI Connectivity in High Functioning Autism

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) represent a complex group of neurodevelopmental conditions characterized by deficits in communication and social behaviors. We examined the functional connectivity (FC) of the default mode network (DMN) and its relation to multimodal morphometry to investigate superregional, system-level alterations in a group of 22 adolescents and young adults with high-functioning autism compared to age-, and intelligence quotient-matched 29 healthy controls. The main findings were that ASD patients had gray matter (GM) reduction, decreased cortical thickness and larger cortical surface areas in several brain regions, including the cingulate, temporal lobes, and amygdala, as well as increased gyrification in regions associated with encoding visual memories and areas of the sensorimotor component of the DMN, more pronounced in the left hemisphere. Moreover, patients with ASD had decreased connectivity between the posterior cingulate cortex, and areas of the executive control component of the DMN and increased FC between the anteromedial prefrontal cortex and areas of the sensorimotor component of the DMN. Reduced cortical thickness in the right inferior frontal lobe correlated with higher social impairment according to the scores of the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R). Reduced cortical thickness in left frontal regions, as well as an increased cortical thickness in the right temporal pole and posterior cingulate, were associated with worse scores on the communication domain of the ADI-R. We found no association between scores on the restrictive and repetitive behaviors domain of ADI-R with structural measures or FC. The combination of these structural and connectivity abnormalities may help to explain some of the core behaviors in high-functioning ASD and need to be investigated further

The first 62 AGN observed with SDSS-IV MaNGA -- III: stellar and gas kinematics

We investigate the effects of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) on the gas kinematics of their host galaxies, using MaNGA data for a sample of 62 AGN hosts and 109 control galaxies (inactive galaxies). We compare orientation of the line of nodes (kinematic Position Angle - PA) measured from the gas and stellar velocity fields for the two samples. We found that AGN hosts and control galaxies display similar kinematic PA offsets between gas and stars. However, we note that AGN have larger fractional velocity dispersion $\sigma$ differences between gas and stars [$\sigma_{frac}=(\sigma_{\rm gas}-\sigma_{stars})/\sigma_{\rm stars}$] when compared to their controls, as obtained from the velocity dispersion values of the central (nuclear) pixel (2.5" diameter). The AGN have a median value of $\sigma_{\rm frac}$ of $_{\rm AGN}=0.04$, while the the median value for the control galaxies is $_{\rm CTR}=-0.23$. 75% of the AGN show $\sigma_{frac}>-0.13$, while 75% of the normal galaxies show $\sigma_{\rm frac}<-0.04$, thus we suggest that the parameter $\sigma_{\rm frac}$ can be used as an indicative of AGN activity. We find a correlation between the [OIII]$\lambda$5007 luminosity and $\sigma_{frac}$ for our sample. Our main conclusion is that the AGN already observed with MaNGA are not powerful enough to produce important outflows at galactic scales, but at 1-2 kpc scales, AGN feedback signatures are always present on their host galaxies.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures, published in MNRA

Mapping the stellar population and gas excitation of MaNGA galaxies with MEGACUBES. Results for AGN versus control sample

We present spaxel-by-spaxel stellar population fits for the $\sim$10 thousand MaNGA datacubes. We provide multiple extension fits files, nominated as MEGACUBES, with maps of several properties as well as emission-line profiles that are provided for each spaxel. All the MEGACUBES are available through a web interface (https://manga.linea.org.br/ or http://www.if.ufrgs.br/~riffel/software/megacubes/). We also defined a final Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) sample, as well as a control sample matching the AGN host galaxy properties. We have analysed the stellar populations and spatially resolved emission-line diagnostic diagrams of these AGNs and compared them with the control galaxies sample. We find that the relative fractions of young ($t \leq$56 Myr) and intermediate-age (100 Myr $\leq t \leq$ 2 Gyr) show predominantly a positive gradient for both AGNs and controls. The relative fraction of intermediate-age stellar population is higher in AGN hosts when compared to the control sample, and this difference becomes larger for higher [O III] luminosity AGNs. We attribute this to the fact that extra gas is available in these more luminous sources and that it most likely originates from mass-loss from the intermediate-age stars. The spatially resolved diagnostic diagrams reveal that the AGN emission is concentrated in the inner 0.5 $R_e$ (effective radius) region of the galaxies, showing that the AGN classification is aperture dependent and that emission-line ratios have to be taken together with the H$\alpha$ equivalent width for proper activity classification. We present a composite "BPT+WHAN" diagram that produces a more comprehensive mapping of the gas excitation.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA

The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment

The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in operation since July 2014. This paper describes the second data release from this phase, and the fourteenth from SDSS overall (making this, Data Release Fourteen or DR14). This release makes public data taken by SDSS-IV in its first two years of operation (July 2014-2016). Like all previous SDSS releases, DR14 is cumulative, including the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since the first phase began operations in 2000. New in DR14 is the first public release of data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS); the first data from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2), including stellar parameter estimates from an innovative data driven machine learning algorithm known as "The Cannon"; and almost twice as many data cubes from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey as were in the previous release (N = 2812 in total). This paper describes the location and format of the publicly available data from SDSS-IV surveys. We provide references to the important technical papers describing how these data have been taken (both targeting and observation details) and processed for scientific use. The SDSS website (www.sdss.org) has been updated for this release, and provides links to data downloads, as well as tutorials and examples of data use. SDSS-IV is planning to continue to collect astronomical data until 2020, and will be followed by SDSS-V.Comment: SDSS-IV collaboration alphabetical author data release paper. DR14 happened on 31st July 2017. 19 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by ApJS on 28th Nov 2017 (this is the "post-print" and "post-proofs" version; minor corrections only from v1, and most of errors found in proofs corrected