New Computer Program May Diagnose Alzheimer’s Disease Much Earlier…

A recent study has shown that artificial intelligence (AI) can spot Alzheimer’s six years earlier than doctors.

This is a huge development in the fight against this debilitating disease that affects 5.7 million adults. If you have a loved one in hospice who’s suffering from dementia in San Francisco and elsewhere, this gives you hope for the future of diagnosis possibly in yourself and your children.

The research uses machine learning technology to look at structural features within the brain, including in regions not previously associated with Alzheimer’s. The advantage of the technique is its simplicity and the fact that it can identify the disease at an early stage when it can be very difficult to diagnose.

A group of 1,000 people was under the study of Boston University researchers, using audio recordings from neuropsychological interviews, and using speech recognition tools that enabled computers to transcribe the recordings and then translate them into numbers.

The chances of cognitive impairment were then determined by those numbers, demographic data, and diagnoses from neurologists and neuropsychologists.

Here’s what Ioannis Paschalidis, a co-author of the paper, said:

“This approach brings us one step closer to early intervention. It can form the basis of an online tool that could reach everyone and could increase the number of people who get screened early.”

Surprisingly, the researchers learn that the fluidity of speech among people who were recorded was less important than what they were saying.

Paschalidis admitted:

“It surprised us that speech flow or other audio features are not that critical; you can automatically transcribe interviews reasonably well, and rely on text analysis through AI to assess cognitive impairment.” 

In July 2019, researchers from the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Department declared they had created a vaccine that could prevent the development of Alzheimer’s disease.

The department’s newsroom website stated that the vaccine used virus-like particles (VLPs) to eliminate the tangling of the tau protein, which when accumulated in the brain can interrupt neurons in the brain from communicating.

Nicole Maphis, a PhD candidate who was working in the lab of Kiran Bhaskar, PhD, an associate professor in UNM’s Department of Molecular Genetics & Microbiology, stated, “We’re excited by these findings, because they seem to suggest that we can use the body’s own immune system to make antibodies against these tangles, and that these antibodies actually bind and clear these tau tangles.”

Maphis tested the vaccine in mice and they showed a marked improvement in their capacity to deal with mazes. The UNM Health Department site stated, “MRI scans showed that the vaccinated animals had less brain shrinkage, suggesting that the vaccine prevented neurons from dying. Maphis also found significantly fewer tangles in both the cortex and the hippocampus – areas in the brain that are important for learning and memory, and which are destroyed in Alzheimer’s.”

In November 2018, a study published in Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy touted a new Alzheimer’s vaccine developed by scientists at the University of Texas Southwestern that could conceivably cut the number of dementia cases in half. The research team tested four groups of mice; the vaccinated mice experienced as much as 40% of their beta-amyloid plaques reduced and as much as 50% of their tau tangles diminished. No adverse immune response was observed.

Sources: TheDailyWire, ScienceDaily