Teens Develop Handwriting-Recognition AI for Detecting Parkinson's Disease

When Tanish Tyagi published his first research paper a year ago on deep learning to detect dementia, it started a family-driven pursuit. Great-grandparents in his family had suffered from Parkinson's, a genetic disease that affects more than 10 million people worldwide. So the now 16-year-old turned to that next, together with his sister, Riya, 14. The siblings, from Short Hills, New Jersey, published a research paper in the fall about using machine learning to detect Parkinson's disease by focusing on micrographia, a handwriting disorder that's a marker for Parkinson's. They aim to make a model widely accessible so that early detection is possible for people around the world with limited access to clinics.