Computer Vision News - January 2023

32 SMILE Lab brain/bio-inspired AI are questionable in their effectiveness. There are multiple reasons for that. One is that people don’t capture the disease early enough. When symptoms appear, brain cells are already damaged , and it’s too late for medication to reverse that trajectory. Even if patients are identified early, the current treatment plan is one size fits all. ” SMILE lab aims to use the advanced tools of AI and deep learning to transform the early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia, as well as other neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s. “ Alzheimer’s is a very popular research topic globally, but our work is unique because we’re lookingat thehumaneyetodiagnose the disease , ” Ruogu reveals. “ Existing research in animal models, as well as human data, shows that the retina at the back of the eye is highly related to pathological Neurodegenerative diseases have been a growing healthcare burden worldwide for several years and are becoming an even more significant problem due to an aging population. 13-16 million people are expected to be living with Alzheimer’s disease in the US alone by 2050. With global numbers soaring at an exponential rate, it is one of the top healthcare challenges today , with billions of dollars spent and tens of thousands of researchers working on it over the past decade. The mechanism of Alzheimer’s disease is still unclear . There are several hypotheses, for example, involving tau and beta- amyloid proteins and the role of the immune system, but no definitive answers. “ There is no cure today for Alzheimer’s disease, and 99% of the clinical drug trials have failed, ” Ruogu laments. “ So-called medication or treatments on the market Ruogu “Reanna” Fang is an Associate Professor in the Biomedical Engineering Department at the University of Florida (UF). She is also associated with the Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering Departments and is the Associate Director of the Intelligent Critical Care Center at UF. SMART MEDICAL INFORMATICS LEARNING AND EVALUATION (SMILE) LAB