Fig. 2: Mean local activity (LCOR) after ketamine (KET) and midazolam (MDZ) administration in regions significantly altered in autism and correlation of the neurochemical co-localization profiles between autism, KET and MDZ condition.

A Boxplots comparing LCOR following KET and MDZ administration relative to placebo (PLC) condition. The data are derived from N = 27 independent individuals scanned in a three-way cross-over design, with each participant completing all three drug conditions (KET, MDZ, PLC). Delta LCOR is defined as the mean LCOR in the KET or MDZ condition minus the mean LCOR in the PLC condition. The plots display Delta LCOR values within all voxels that showed significant decreases (left) or increases (right) in individuals with autism compared to typically developing controls (TD) in the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange 1 (ABIDE1) dataset. Center line shows the median; box limits indicate the interquartile range (IQR; 25th–75th percentile); whiskers extend to the most extreme data points within 1.5 × IQR from the box. Statistical analysis was performed using one-sample t-tests (one-sided, p < 0.05). Degrees of freedom (df) = 26. B Scatterplots illustrating the relationship between the 16 Fisher’s z-values for KET (left) and MDZ (right) versus PLC, and autism versus TD in the ABIDE1 and ABIDE2 datasets. The 16 Fisher’s z-values represent the LCOR-neurotransmitter co-localization profiles for the respective contrast. Trend line represents the least-squares linear fit; shaded area denotes the 95 % confidence interval. Statistical analysis was performed using two-sided Pearson correlations. Df = 14. Source data including exact p values are provided as a Source Data file.