Abstract Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is an umbrella term for a number of neurodevelopmental conditions with many heterogeneous behavioural indications. Recent medical imaging approaches use functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) for human recognition of the various neurological syndromes. However, these traditional techniques are time consuming and expensive. Thus, in this research, an optimization assisted deep learning technique, named Feedback Artificial Virus Optimization (FAVO)‐based deep residual network (DRN), is developed. FAVO‐based DRN is designed to incorporate the Feedback Artificial Tree (FAT) algorithm with Anti Corona Virus Optimization (ACVO). First, Region‐Of‐Interest extraction is carried out using thresholding techniques with nub region extraction completed using the proposed FAVO algorithm. ASD classification is then carried out using a DRN classifier. Evaluation of the proposal uses the ABIDE‐1 and ABIDE‐2 datasets. The developed FAVO algorithm attains better accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of 0.9214, 0.9365, and 0.9142, respectively, by considering ABIDE‐2 dataset.