Using AI to Analyze Brain Cells May Advance Parkinson's Research

Computers may be taught to identify features in nerve cells that have not been stained or undergone other damaging treatments for microscope use, an approach with the potential to revolutionize the way researchers study neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's. "Researchers are now generating extraordinary amounts of data. For neuroscientists, this means that training machines to help analyze this information can help speed up our understanding of how the cells of the brain are put together and in applications related to drug development," Margaret Sutherland, PhD, said in a press release. Sutherland is program director at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), which helps fund the research. The study "In silico labeling: Predicting fluorescent labels in unlabeled images" was published in the journal Cell.