We've all seen movies like The Terminator and The Matrix, where AI wipes out the human race, because reasons. But AI can be a force for good as well, with some researchers using AI to detect Alzheimer's earlier than ever before.
Some researchers have looked at blood and cerebrospinal fluid test, while others are developing tools to find early signs of Alzheimer's. But a team of researchers from the University of Bari in Italy might have found the answer, where they've developed an algorithm that can spot tiny structural changes in the brain that are caused by Alzheimer's... up to 10 years before symptoms appear.
The trained AI has received 67 MRI scans, with 38 of them from Alzheimer's patients, and 29 from healthy patients. The researchers divided the scans into small regions, with the AI system analyzing the neuronal connectivity between.
Once the AI had finished its training, the researchers tested the algorithm by having the AI system processing brain scans with 148 subjects. Out of those 148 subjects, 52 of them were healthy, while 48 of them had Alzheimer's diseases, and another 48 had mile cognitive impairment (MCI), but are known to develop Alzheimer's disease 2.5 to 9 years later.
The AI system was capable of working out which patients have a healthy brain and someone with Alzheimer's with an accuracy of 86% which is impressive, but the AI can also tell the difference between healthy brains and those with MCI with an accuracy of 84%.
AI systems working to help people in need is something I personally want to see expanded over the next few decades. We all have people in our lives that have been affected, or will be affected by crippling disease... and if artificial intelligence can detect something like Alzheimer's this early... all governments should be pushing AI into medicine 100x faster than they are now.