A team of 20 researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh and Dundee has been permitted to analyze 1.6 million CT and MRI images collected between 2008 and 2018.
This decision was granted permission by the NHS, Scotland’s Public Benefit and Privacy Panel for Health and Social Care, which already discussed the privacy aspects and public benefits.
Thus, all the scans will be anonymous, so the researchers know nothing about the person they are looking at.
Researchers are going to use AI to analyze the patterns or signs of dementia and develop advanced tools that can help radiologists with the early detection of the disease.
Dementia is identified by the buildup of different proteins, which causes cognitive decline and damages brain tissue. The molecular and cellular changes can be seen years before the symptoms appear.
The scientist says that if the patient is informed of the chances of developing such a disease, he or she might work hard to slow down the progress and make changes.
The latest research project is called Scan-Dan (Scottish AI in Neuroimaging to Predict Dementia and Neurodegenerative Disease), which is a part of the global research collaboration known as NEURii.
Prof. Emanuele Trucco, an expert in AI and medical imaging at Dundee University, said, “This new data set will be of great use to neurological researchers.”
He said, “So if we see your brain, even if we are not entirely sure what we are seeing in the first instance, I can still predict whether you are at risk.”
The research team revealed that they will be able to understand the technology potential by early next year, and it might take a few more years to develop a tool that can be used.
