We’ve been providing interesting information around AI in previous blogs, but this application just made our jaws drop. The title of Dana Smith’s article published by the University of California San Francisco is: Artificial Intelligence Can Detect Alzheimer’s Disease in Brain Scans Six Years Before a Diagnosis.You read that right. Jae Ho Sohn, MD, MS and other researchers spearheaded the development and training of a machine learning algorithm which could be applied to PET scans. The goal was early diagnosis of  Alzheimer’s before too many neurons have died. 

The results so far: “The algorithm performed with flying colors. It correctly identified 92 percent of patients who developed Alzheimer’s disease in the first test set and 98 percent in the second test set. What’s more, it made these correct predictions on average 75.8 months – a little more than six years – before the patient received their final diagnosis.” Further testing is needed, but it looks like a breakthrough in the early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s could be at our fingertips.