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Artificial Intelligence Unleashed on the Brain: Using Machine Learning to Predict Alzheimer’s
But the devil is in the algorithm’s details
This week, a novel computer algorithm tries to turn cross-sectional studies into longitudinal ones to give us new insights into neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. The manuscript, appearing in the journal Brain, may be the birth of a new machine-learning technique that could transform the field.
But I’m not entirely convinced.
Let’s walk through it.
One of the major problems in neurodegenerative disease research is a lack of big longitudinal datasets. If resources were unlimited, we could follow blood gene expression profiles for tens of thousands of people for decades, see who develops neurodegenerative diseases, and gain a deep understanding of the longitudinal changes in gene expression that might drive the disease. That information could not only give us a new prognostic tool but could identify…
