AI COULD HELP DIAGNOSE ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE A DECADE EARLIER THAN DOCTORS CAN

A devastating chronic neurodegenerative disease, Alzheimer's disease (AD) currently affects around 5.5 million people in the United States alone. Causing progressive mental deterioration, it ultimately advances to impact basic bodily functions such as walking and swallowing. Looking for a way to help, researchers at the University of Bari and Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare in Italy have developed new machine learning AI technology that may help identify Alzheimer's a decade before doctors usually can, by way of non-invasive MRI brain scans. An early diagnosis -- before any of the symptoms a doctor might recognize become apparent -- could give patients a chance to make changes to their lifestyle which may slow Alzheimer's progression. "We used publicly available data, consisting of 67 brain MRI scans from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, including healthy controls and AD patients," Nicola Amoroso, one of the lead researchers on the project, told Digital Trends.