Enigma of autism regression mechanistic pathways, clinical phenotypes, and early intervention implications

Table 4 Clinical phenotypes of autism regression and proposed mechanistic correlations

Phenotype	Primary areas of loss	Proposed mechanistic associations
Language-dominant	Expressive language, verbal imitation	Atypical synaptic pruning in temporal language networks
Social-communicative	Eye contact, joint attention, name response	Disrupted long-range connectivity in social brain networks
Mixed	Language and social communication	Combined neuroinflammatory processes and excitatory-inhibitory imbalance
Global	Motor, adaptive, social, and language skills	Mitochondrial dysfunction or syndromic/genetic disorders