We may be one step closer to an artificial intelligence (AI) tool capable of diagnosing Alzheimer's disease faster and more accurately, according to a new study conducted by Stevens Institute of Technology. "This is a real breakthrough. We're opening an exciting new field of research, and making it far easier to explain to patients why the A.I. came to the conclusion that it did, while diagnosing patients. This addresses the important question of trustability of A.I .systems in the medical field," said K.P. Subbalakshmi, the lead researcher. The new AI tool involves the analyzation of subtle linguistic patterns characteristic of people with a neurodegenerative disease.

An artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm has produced another significant breakthrough using attention mechanisms and a convolutional neural network to accurately identify tell-tale signs of Alzheimer's. The AI tool developed by the Stevens Institute of Technology is said to be able to explain its conclusions, thus enabling human experts to check the accuracy of its diagnosis by up to 95%. AI has made huge strides in the medical sector and this latest news is further evidence that the speed at which the technology is moving shows no signs of ceasing any time soon. The algorithm is trained to identify subtle linguistic patterns previously overlooked by using texts composed by both healthy subjects and known Alzheimer's sufferers. The team of researchers then converted each sentence into a unique numerical sequence, or vector, representing a specific point in a 512-dimensional space.

With no cure and no straightforward way of diagnosing the disease, scientists are exploring every avenue when it comes to detecting Alzheimer's during its early stages. One group of researchers has turned its attention to subtle differences in the language of sufferers, and have developed an AI tool they say can pick up on these as a way of potentially screening for the disease. The research was carried out at New Jersey's Stevens Institute of Technology and focuses on the way some Alzheimer's sufferers express themselves. The disease, and others that cause dementia, can impact some parts of the brain that control language, meaning that sufferers can struggle to find the right words, perhaps using the word "book" to describe a newspaper, or replacing nouns with pronouns, for example. "Language deficits occur in eight to 10 percent of individuals in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD), and become more severe and numerous during its later stages," lead author of the study, K.P. Subbalakshmi explains to New Atlas.

Researchers have developed software that detects Alzheimer's using artificial intelligence (AI) at 95% accuracy. Stevens Institute of Technology researchers have developed software that detects subtle changes in Alzheimer's patients' languages. Also, it can explain the diagnosis and allows physicians to re-check the findings. "This is a real breakthrough," said Stevens Institute of Technology lead researcher K.P. Subbalakshmi adding that we are "opening an exciting new field of research." Subbalakshmi is the founding director of the Stevens Institute of Artificial Intelligence as well as an electrical and computer engineering professor at the Charles V. Schaeffer School of Engineering.

Everyone, it seems, is talking about artificial intelligence these days. AI, a broad term variously describing either a grandiose goal or a toolbox of technologies and techniques, is poised to profoundly transform the ways we do business, monitor our health, commute to work and more. AI is now a $20 billion global industry -- and investment in it is projected to triple in just the next three years. Siri and Echo use AI-type processes. So do Google Maps and Translate.