Global Synchronization of Multichannel EEG Based on Rényi Entropy in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been defined as a pervasive neurodevelopmental disorder, involving communication, social interaction and repetitive behaviors. Currently, it is still challenging to understand the differences of brain activity between ASD and healthy children. In this study, we propose calculating the Renyi entropy of the eigenvalues derived from the signal correlation matrix to measure the global synchronization in multichannel electroencephalograph (EEG) from 16 children with ASD (aged 8-12 years) and 16 age- and sex-matched healthy controls at the resting state. The results indicate that there is a significantly diminished global synchronization from ASD to healthy control. The proposed method can help to reveal the intrinsic characteristics of multichannel EEG signals in children with ASD and aspects that distinguish them from healthy children.