Predict progression of dementia in patients with mild cognitive decline.
Researchers at the Polytechnic University of Madrid have developed an artificial intelligence tool that predicts the time remaining in a person with this disorder before developing a neurodegenerative disease.
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Transition period between mild cognitive decline And dementia may last more than ten years. However, about 30% of people suffering from it convert within the first four years.
What’s more, approximately 80% of these fast-transforming individuals already had amyloid pathology—that is, when these abnormal proteins accumulate and form deposits in the brain that prevent it from functioning properly—at the time of birth. diagnosis original.
Researchers from the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) conducted a study in which a researcher from the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) collaborated, in which they applied artificial intelligence (AI) tools in patients with mild cognitive decline.
Results published in Current Alzheimer’s Disease Researchshow that multiple neuropsychological tests can effectively detect dementia progression without other additional clinical testing, facilitating the integration of this technology into clinical practice.
The researchers observed how patients diagnosed with mild cognitive decline who had amyloid pathology at baseline tended to progress toward dementia at a faster rate than those without amyloid pathology.
The experts also confirmed the importance of conducting experiments that determine the presence of two pathologies (amyloid and tau) at the beginning of the diagnosis of mild cognitive decline in a patient.
The importance of AI
Disease progression models are currently being developed using artificial intelligence techniques. These models not only contribute to the diagnosis and prognosis of patients, but also allow testing hypotheses about the temporal evolution of diseases.
They can also analyze whether the marker can track the disease. These algorithms use longitudinal patient data to assess how symptoms and pathology develop over time.
As noted Carlos PlateroUPM researcher and one of the authors of the paper: “AI-supported assessments significantly improve clinical diagnosis and monitoring of patients’ development in subsequent years, and also make it possible to distinguish between Alzheimer’s and other dementias.”