There are currently around 50 million people living with dementia worldwide, and that number is set to almost double every 20 years. However, so far\u00a0drug trials to reverse the condition have failed.<\/p>\n
One of the key challenges for clinicians\u00a0is that the disease is mostly detected once it’s at an advanced stage. However, researchers hope the new AI could change this by providing an early warning system.<\/p>\n
Mallar Chakravarty, a computational neuroscientist at McGill University’s Douglas Mental Health University Institute in Montreal, led a team of specialists from the University of Toronto and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health to input data into the algorithm from more than 800 people.<\/p>\n
They\u00a0used data collected from blood tests and MRI scans among other health markers as part of the Alzheimer\u2019s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, a historic study of brain aging.<\/p>\n
Alzheimer\u2019s disease is believed to be caused by a build up of sticky amyloid plaques and tau proteins that stop\u00a0neurons from communicating with each other. By the time symptoms like loss of memory, mood swings and a change in personality take places, it becomes\u00a0impossible to treat.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cAt the moment, there are limited ways to treat Alzheimer\u2019s and the best evidence we have is for prevention. Our AI methodology could have significant implications as a \u2018doctor\u2019s assistant\u2019 that would help stream people onto the right pathway for treatment,\u201d said Mr Chakravarty.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, one could even initiate lifestyle changes that may delay the beginning stages of Alzheimer\u2019s or even prevent it altogether.\u201d<\/p>\n
A<\/span>ccording to the Alzheimer\u2019s Society, delaying the onset of dementia by five years could halve the number of deaths and save around 30,000 lives per year.<\/p>\n Hannah Churchill, research officer at Alzheimer\u2019s Society, welcomes the work as an important step in the search for early-stage interventions for patients.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is an area of huge interest within the research community at the moment, using technology like this to monitor people over a period of time, because currently the way we assess progression in cognition is very disjointed,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at people every six months and they\u2019re using written tests, so it\u2019s not hugely accurate.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms Churchill thinks the AI will require testing on a greater number of people over a longer time frame for full validation, but sees positive signs from the research as it could help people get more specific treatments earlier to help combat the disease.<\/p>\n T<\/span>he new study was published in the journal\u00a0PLOS Computational Biology.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n –<\/p>\n Telegraph<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Canadian scientists have created an AI that they claim can successfully spot Alzheimer\u2019s five\u00a0years before major symptoms appear. There are currently around 50 million people living with dementia worldwide, and that number is set to almost double every 20 years. However, so far\u00a0drug trials to reverse the condition have failed. One of the key challenges …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4657,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4656"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4659,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4656\/revisions\/4659"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}