Decoding Gene Editing: A Journey into the Future of Medicine

28 January 2024

Decoding Gene Editing: A Journey into the Future of Medicine

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Gene editing, a revolutionary technique that empowers scientists to modify genetic material, has emerged as a beacon of hope in the quest to address human health challenges and revolutionize various fields, including medicine, agriculture, and environmental science. Embark on an informative exploration of this transformative technology and delve into its potential to reshape our world.

Unraveling the Mysteries of DNA

At the heart of gene editing lies DNA, the intricate blueprint that governs our existence. DNA, a molecule composed of genes, carries the instructions for building and maintaining our bodies. It is the fundamental code that dictates our traits, including physical characteristics, susceptibility to diseases, and metabolic processes.

CRISPR: A Versatile Precision Tool

The advent of CRISPR-Cas9, a remarkably precise gene-editing tool, has revolutionized the scientific landscape. CRISPR works like a molecular search-and-replace function, identifying specific DNA sequences and introducing targeted alterations. This newfound ability to manipulate genetic material has opened up a plethora of possibilities for medical breakthroughs.

Addressing Genetic Disorders

Gene editing holds immense promise for treating genetic disorders, a broad range of diseases caused by faulty genes. By correcting the underlying genetic defects, scientists can potentially cure or alleviate the symptoms of debilitating conditions such as cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, and Huntington’s disease.

Engineering Disease Resistance

Gene editing extends its reach beyond human health, offering transformative potential in agriculture. Scientists can utilize this technology to engineer crops that are resistant to pests, diseases, and adverse environmental factors, ensuring food security and bolstering agricultural productivity.

Combating Mosquito-Borne Diseases

The fight against mosquito-borne diseases like malaria, Zika, and dengue fever has gained a powerful weapon in the form of gene editing. By modifying the DNA of mosquitoes, scientists can render them incapable of transmitting these diseases, potentially eradicating these devastating illnesses.

Navigating the Ethical Dilemmas

Despite its remarkable potential, gene editing raises a host of ethical concerns that demand careful consideration. Altering the human genome raises ethical questions about the potential for creating designer babies, the possibility of introducing unintended consequences, and the equitable distribution of this technology.

Guiding the Future of Gene Editing

As gene editing continues to evolve, it is crucial to establish robust ethical guidelines and regulatory frameworks that ensure its responsible application. Public engagement and open dialogue are essential to foster informed discussions about the social, ethical, and societal implications of this transformative technology.

Emerging Frontiers and Endless Possibilities

The future of gene editing is brimming with possibilities. Scientists are exploring its potential to treat complex diseases like cancer, tackle aging, and even improve human cognitive abilities. As gene editing continues to advance, its transformative impact on medicine, agriculture, and our understanding of life itself is poised to expand tremendously.

Conclusion

Gene editing represents a paradigm shift in our understanding and manipulation of life. Its potential to revolutionize medicine, agriculture, and other fields is immense. However, it is imperative to approach this technology with caution and ethical consideration, ensuring its responsible application for the betterment of humanity.

Sources and interesting materials:

Tagged health, technology

20 November 2023

AI in Medecine

Reading Time: 2 minutes

AI’s impact on our lives, especially in medicine, is undeniable. Often working behind the scenes, technology like AI not only analyzes data for marketing purposes but also enhances our lives, simplifies tasks, and even contributes to our health.

Let’s delve into how AI transforms medicine and promotes better health. While ChatGPT can’t diagnose or treat illnesses directly, it’s a valuable resource for a broad spectrum of health topics. It offers guidance on wellness, recommends healthy habits, clarifies symptoms, and provides information on various conditions.

The influence of AI in medicine is profound, offering numerous applications that significantly benefit people:

Diagnosis and Prediction AI algorithms scrutinize symptoms, medical images (such as X-rays or MRIs), and patient data, aiding doctors in swift and accurate disease diagnosis. Additionally, it predicts potential health issues based on patient data patterns.
Treatment Personalization Analyzing extensive patient data, AI tailors personalized treatment plans, considering individual genetics, lifestyle, and health history.
Drug Discovery AI accelerates drug discovery by analyzing biological data to predict potential drug candidates, speeding up the development of new medications.
Remote Monitoring AI-powered devices continually monitor patients’ health remotely, supplying real-time data to healthcare providers, particularly beneficial for managing chronic diseases.
Robotic Surgery AI-enabled robots support surgeons during complex procedures, enhancing precision and reducing errors.
Natural Language Processing (NLP) in Healthcare AI-driven chatbots and systems like ChatGPT aid in addressing healthcare queries, scheduling appointments, and offering basic medical information.
Healthcare Management AI optimizes healthcare systems by streamlining workflows, managing resources efficiently, and predicting disease outbreaks.
Genomics and Precision Medicine AI analyzes genomic data, improving disease understanding, identifying genetic predispositions, and proposing personalized treatment options.

These AI applications possess the potential to elevate healthcare by enhancing efficiency, accuracy, and accessibility while enabling more personalized and effective treatments for individuals.

This content was created with the assistance of ChatGPT 3.5, utilizing prompts on the roles of AI in medicine.

Tagged AI, health, medecine

17 January 2023

Neurochips Synchron VS Elon Musk’s ambitions

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Synchron company became the first developer of brain-computer interfaces, which introduced its Stentrode implant into the head of an American. Now a person who has long lost the ability to move and speak will be able to control a web browser and communicate via email using the power of thought. He became the fifth person in the world with an implanted neurochip.

The new Synchron project was implemented under the guidance of specialists from Mount Sinai West Medical Center. Neurointerventional surgeon Shahram Majidi made an incision in the patient’s neck and inserted a miniature sensor into the brain. Stentrode — a 1.5—inch-long device consisting of wires and electrodes – opened and began to fuse with the outer edges of the blood vessel. According to Majidi, this procedure was very similar to implantation of a coronary stent, so it took only a few minutes.

Electrode matrix Stentrode implanted into a blood vessel inside the skull

When the operation was completed, the sensor was connected via a physical cable to a computing device previously implanted in the patient’s chest. To do this, surgeons have created a “tunnel” for wires and a pocket for the device under the skin — on the same principle as modern pacemakers are installed. After that, the neural interface was activated and connected to the computer. After 48 hours, the patient has already gone home.

ALS, also known as motor neuron disease is a rare but terrible disease: the atrophy of neurons gradually disconnects the periphery of the brain in the form of muscles. What it does to a person can be represented by the example of the most famous patient of this scourge in our time: Stephen Hawking.

The principle of operation of Stentrode is relatively simple. The sensor reads the signals activated by the patient’s brain and transmits it to the device under the skin. The latter interprets the activity and sends a ready-made command via Bluetooth to a computer or smartphone. But how does the cursor move? Here lies some weakness of the current Stentrode model: the choice of a place to press and move the cursor is not carried out by nerve impulses of the brain directly, but by means of a fair “crutch”: an eye tracker, an eye tracking system like the one that was built into the famous Stephen Hawking chair and allowed him, in fact, to work on a computer and communicate online. Only without the neurointerface yet. In this way, the user can switch the tab in the browser, open the email application, type a text and send it to the selected recipient.

And still Synchron managed to get ahead of its main competitor: the ambitious Neuralink of Elon Musk, who promised to start experiments on human volunteers back in 2020, but to this day has not received permission from the FDA. And the procedure itself from Elon Musk’s project looks much bolder, due to a much more extensive system of sensors and electrodes, it is going to allow the patient much more than Stentrode, but at the same time — more brutal. Instead of a neat passage through the incision on the neck, the patient should cut out a part of the skull by means of a robot surgeon, and after a complex automated operation with direct connection of electrodes to the brain, replace it with an electronic unit.

However, this approach has been used for two decades by the Utah Array (BrainGate) technology from Cyberkinetics, which Musk himself calls “something like an instrument of torture.” This technology has already been developed so much that it is used in more than five hundred laboratories around the world. It allows patients to make rather complex movements with electronic limbs by means of electrodes embedded in the motor areas of the brain. It also provides the ability to move the cursor across the screen with an effort of thought, but requires a very complex neurosurgical operation and cumbersome equipment. Plus, it has quite negative consequences for the health of patients (the body rejects too large and roughly embedded electrodes and sensors. Channels overgrow and block contacts).

Synchron CEO Thomas Oxley holds the endovascular matrix of Stentrode electrodes during TED 2022

The company hopes that the devices of the Stantrade series will be able to become the first suitable for use at home, and not only in the walls of a specially equipped laboratory or ward, like BrainGate. And many surgeons will be able to perform it in almost ordinary hospitals, and not specially designed robots, like Elon Musk’s, or a whole team of specialists with the most complex equipment, as in the case of BrainGate.

Resources: https://habr.com/ru/company/ruvds/blog/679652/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/01/elon-musks-neuralink-makes-big-claims-but-experts-are-skeptical-.html

Tagged Elon Musk, health, innovation

13 January 2023

6 Comments

AI, Devices

New step forward to fight agains breasts cancer using AI

Reading Time: 2 minutes

At least once in a year or two years every woman is recommended to go through mammography test. Such testings are important to spot the cancer on early stages. However, outside of being crucial, it is also expensive. This problem is faced by low-/middle-income countries, while the amount of woman that have or, as a result, die from cancer is gradually increasing over last years.

In India, where half of the woman with this disease die, new way of spotting breast cancer was found. A small and portable camera which works basing on AI and consisting thermal in it.

Researcher Builds Non-Invasive Device To Detect Breast Cancer

The test is taking around 10 minutes and the only thing woman should do is to remove the top. One of the main advantages of this test is that no one is touching you, especially considering that this fact was stopping some people from the mammography test.

The test works in the way of producing detailed heatmap of the breasts, and if it spots patterns typical for cancer, the woman is required to undertake further tests

There is the hope that this invention will make tests more accessible in the place where mammography is considered intrusive or is less accessible.

60,000 women were already tested using this technology, the inventor of the ‘machine’ claims that the camera is 90% accurate in detecting abnormalities.

However, what is the Western countries’ opinion on this Indian invention?

Doctors from US and Europe still doubt this invention and think that thermal tests are not reliable, so you cannot use this, when it comes to the point that the result can threaten patient’s life.

What is more, the US Food and Drug Administration stated that mammography is and will be the best screening method. On controversy to this, the other statement of US FDA is that they hope, these specific tests will reach people, that cannot afford or avoid undertaking regular ones.

However, that is a great start for such an important development of 21^st century. Breast cancer is one of the biggest problems when it comes to causes of womens’ death.

Here you can read more about AI related test that help doctors to fight with breasts cancer by detecting it on early stages: https://www.cureus.com/articles/106594-artificial-intelligence-in-breast-cancer-screening-and-diagnosis

Tagged AI, breast cancer, health, medicine

9 January 2023

9 Comments

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buy, smoke, poison

Reading Time: 2 minutes

“The earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs but not every man’s greed” -Mahatma Gandhi

Today I want to mention a serious problem with you with I find mind-blowing and totally illogical for me, namely- single use vapes.

Vapes was available for use since 2003 but they gained popularity almost seven years later in 2010 when this business exploded. At first they were made with idea of an alternative for normal cigarettes, but it wasn’t long before teens just started buying it because of the cool taste and mostly for fun. We still haven’t discovered all bad consequences of vapes but for sure we know that almost 2.5 million underaged people hit it every day, and that is only in United States.

Over £350m worth of lithium from disposable vapes and e-cigarettes discarded each year. — https://images.app.goo.gl/iGbNPLKKfcwtWU998

We as people are becoming more aware of climate change or more climate catastrophe. We are reducing our carbon footprint, we buy eco-friendly products or use products more than once…oh exactly. In 2010 when vape business grower rapidly they were build from a rechargeable battery, liquid container, heating device and plastic cover. When someone emptied the liquid, he could simply buy another bottle so it made it quite reusable. So what has gone wrong? As always -money. When someone bought just a device, it last for as long as electric devices inside allowed it ,so similar as phone. Apparently the income was too small for producers so they made most illogical decision (of course in ecological sense) they switched to single use vapes that costs 1/3 of a normal pod price but they lasts for 1-2 days of use. Perfect for a party yeah? Not so much witch its results.

Single use vapes are built from battery and heating device which can be extremely dangerous and toxic if it’s not rightly disposed or returned to a store…and believe me they are not. Inside of this tasty little sticks there is dangerous particles such as lithium, nickel, manganese or cobalt. On the landfills exposed to rain they can easily poison water and soil or even cause a fire due to self-ignition.

It is speculated that we throw away 10 tones of lithium a year only from disposable vapes which is sum of 1,200 Tesla car batteries.

Personally, I think that every battery should be used a lot more than once as it is not renewable and toxic power source. We should endeavour to throw away less and make it circular as much as we can, so getting rid of a plastic stick with a battery after one day of ,,pleasure” with a funny taste is total nonsense.

My advice to you is to think before buying anything cause it really matters, there is a statement that with every purchase you are shaping the world you live in, so to shape it well we should be aware of what we choose and how it impact our surroundings.

The Cons of Disposable Vape Kits – Original C E-liquids — https://images.app.goo.gl/TKkyMER6rQZz32pG8

Sources:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/e-cigarette

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-63037553

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impacts_of_lithium-ion_batteries

https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/youth-and-tobacco/results-annual-national-youth-tobacco-survey

Tagged ecology, health

15 December 2022

3 Comments

AI in medicine

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Artificial intelligence has a wide range of use in every industry that we can think off. It is meant to make people’s work more efficient and more accurate. But the biggest advantage of using this algorithms is that they can conduct hard and time consuming tasks with the imperceptible margin of error.

But how AI is used in medicine?

Thanks to AI algorithms and machine learning models there are a lot of possibilities in which professionals are able to use them. Currently the most common roles of AI in this field are supporting clinical decisions and imaging analysis. The idea of clinical decision programs is to help specialist make decisions about the treatment, medications and other things that patients need. Whereas the imaging analysis is intended to analyse X-rays scans and many others to provide the information faster and more accurate. It also speeds up some process considering developing new medicine.

Recent Applications of AI in Medicine

1.Diagnose Diseases

The diagnosis part of treatment is the most crucial one. It takes years of medical training to do them correctly. What’s more it is time-consuming process, which might directly influence patients that are waiting for the treatment. That why machine learning is particularly helpful in this area. However not all diseases can be diagnosed by machines, because lack of digitalized data. Luckily there are few that AI and doctors decided to start with, here are some examples:

2.Personalized treatment

There are many different patients and they respond differently to drugs and the ways of treatment. Actually it’s not an easy task to decide what medicine will work the best in your scenario. So that specialist came up with an idea of personalized treatment method. They use the machine learning algorithms to automate the process of discovering characteristic that a specific patient will have a good response to a particular treatment. The system learns this by cross-referencing similar cases with the outcome of the treatment. It all makes much more easier work for doctors.

3. Remote medicine

Ai in this industry isn’t only meant for doctors and specialists. It is also deployed for patients directly. Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic there has been a significant growth of Ai chatbots in hospitals and small clinics to help patients recognize their health problems. They have also significantly reduced challenges people had to overcome while searching for help.

There are also applications in which you can define what are your symptoms and the algorithm will automatically say what disease are you struggling with. It will also advise you to go to see the doctor if necessary. It was especially useful during pandemic to reduce number of patients coming for appointments.

Video:

To sum up, Ai is already helping us in many aspects of medicine. There are lot more things that it optimizes and helps with. But it is just the beginning , the more we digitize medical data the more we can use AI to search new patterns. It surely is the future of our Medicine.

If you want to learn something more I advise you watching the video below. Let me know what do you think about such algorithms.

Sources:

IBM: https://www.ibm.com/topics/artificial-intelligence-medicine

Data revenue: https://www.datarevenue.com/en-blog/artificial-intelligence-in-medicine

Tagged #healthdata, Artificial Intelligence, health, medicine

29 November 2022

2 Comments

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loops

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Last time I showed you some really cool and practical device that helps in improving your skiing, so I would stay in this convention but with much simpler “device” if u can name it that. But first some data:

-5 in 10 young people listen to their music or other audio too loudly

-4 in 10 young people are around dangerously loud noises during events like concerts and sports games

I can not recall a moment when I saw someone studying without headphones. We are so attached to our headphones but not only because of music, often is just cause we want to cut ourselves from outer world, even listening to silence.

Cities are so biased and loud that sometimes it is hard to focus on your thoughts and basically it overwhelms us. Too loud noises can be really dangerous. In the US one in eight people has hearing loss in both ears so nearly 13% of their society is going deaf. Sometimes music isn’t the best tool to focus because it is extremely hard to find one without lyrics or sounds that disturb you even more. In my case only few jazz artists will be helpful. So why we are paying hundreds for device we don’t even use?

Interesting solution was introduced by Belgian company named Loops. The founders suffered for chronic ringing in their ears. Their vision was to release soundproof plugs to concerts, learning or for people with noisy lifestyle. What is interesting its not only an earplug but it is a kind of jewellery due to its aesthetic and unusual design.

I think earplugs can be necessary in sooner future, because cities are getting bigger and big festivals gaining popularity among young people. Headphones are vicious circle as they are damaging your ear fibres and cause loss of hearing, so you start to volume up your music with cause it even faster.

Let me know in the comments what are yours views about focus and loud noises. Maybe you noticed some changes in yours hearing lately?

https://images.app.goo.gl/PLkCH2A4hmxbXTr68

sources:

https://www.loopearplugs.com

https://be.linkedin.com/company/loopearplugs?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/listen-infographic

Tagged fashion, health

17 October 2022

3 Comments

How could AI improve healthcare?

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Artificial Intelligence in today’s world is developing rapidly. It is expected that by 2025 AI systems market will reach 791.5 billion dollars in revenue. In my article I want to focus on how AI is affecting the world’s health care. And I’m not going to show you a super fancy robot that will replace every doctor and even perform surgeries, but something that is way more accessible to people around the globe.

Ada Health is a free medical, symptom-checking app. It helps you check your symptoms and discover what might be causing them. With the help of Artificial Intelligence, Ada compares your case with thousands of medical documents and conditions to give you the most possible causes. The app is available in seven different languages: English, German, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Swahili, and Romanian. Swahili and Romanian were added thanks to funding from Fondation Botnar. It gives 119 million people more access to medical guidance. Ada has now over 12 million users and completed 28 million symptom checks.

How does a symptom check work?

The app is designed like a chatbot. First you have to start symptom assessment. The AI gets smarter the more you tell so you are asked a few simple questions (name, gender, date of birth and some personal questions about your health state). Then you can choose whether this assessment is for yourself or someone else. From there you are searching for your symptoms and briefly describe it. If you don’t know any of the medical terms you have the ability to check it within the app (short explanation with a picture). When all the questions are finished Ada’s AI processes your answers and you get your report. Note that this is not a medical diagnosis, but only a suggestion what might be the cause and suggests what you could do.

Ada is providing people with more information about their current state and suggest taking better health related actions. With the use of Swahili, it will be a game changer in developing countries of Africa, where people don’t have access to proper healthcare, or it is too expensive for them. The app will make them aware of their own health.

Ada is doing a great job at what it is supposed to do, but there is still a problem with accessibility of healthcare. Governments in developing countries should work with initiatives like this one and develop a new healthcare system. In my opinion apps like Ada should be used to interview and diagnose. Then a person would only go for a quick examination and receive medical advice from a doctor. It could make the poor systems more efficient, and one doctor would serve more people at the time.

In the future the app should be developed to gain and use even more personal information about one’s health. It could involve congenital diseases, allergies, eating habits, sports activity, but also information gathered everyday thru your smart devices. It could be integrated into your personal medical system that guides you with every aspect of your health.

Thank you for your time. Let me know what you think about this project and could it actually improve healthcare?

Sources:

https://ada.com/about/

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/27/samsung-and-bayer-invest-in-ai-doctor-app-ada-health.html

https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=US49571222

Tagged Apps, Artificial Intelligence, health, healthcare, machine-learning

31 January 2022

5 Comments

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VR for mental health – How beneficial is it? Should you use it today?

Reading Time: 3 minutes

A brief story about VR

To understand when VR started, it is important to define the term. VR or Virtual Reality is:

“The use of computer technology to create a simulated environment. Unlike traditional user interfaces, VR places the user inside an experience. Instead of viewing a screen in front of them, users are immersed and able to interact with 3D worlds. By simulating as many senses as possible, such as vision, hearing, touch, even smell, the computer is transformed into a gatekeeper to this artificial world. The only limits to near-real VR experiences are the availability of content and cheap computing power.” (marxentlabs.com)

Some argue that the idea of virtual reality was born in the 19^th century with panoramic paintings, such as the battle of Racławice exposed in Wrocław since 1947, which aimed to immerse the spectator in the setting. Yet, the true VR concept was born in the 1930s thanks to the writer Stanley G. Weinbaum in Pygmalion’s Spectacles. In his science fiction novel, he mentions the use of glasses that would make the wearer perceive a fictional world (with sight but also smell, taste, and touch).

VR as we know it will have to wait for the 1960s and the help of Ivan Sutherland, an American IT engineer. Sutherland will create what he calls the “Ultimate Display”, which according to him, is as follows:

“The ultimate display would, of course, be a room within which the computer can control the existence of matter. A chair displayed in such a room would be good enough to sit in. Handcuffs displayed in such a room would be confining, and a bullet displayed in such a room would be fatal. With appropriate programming, such a display could literally be the Wonderland into which Alice walked.”

Ivan Sutherland will become one of the VR pioneers in history, and thanks to his game “Sword of Damocles”, the world will consider his work as the archetype of modern VR.

The name VR will have to wait until 1987, when the founder of the virtual programming lab (VPL), came up with the term “Virtual Reality”.

25 years later, co-founder of the “Oculus rift” Palmer Lucky would take the contraption to a whole new level. His invention had so much potential that Facebook would eventually purchase the Oculus, 2 years later. Google would try to retaliate by making VR accessible to all thanks to its “Google Cardboard”. Unfortunately for them, this will only become a fad and would never reach the same success as the Oculus.

VR and Therapy

Even though the origins of VR were mostly focused on science fiction and video games, the technology had a serious impact on the medical industry. The first treatments ever began in the 1990s with the help of computer scientist Larry Hodges and psychologist Barbara Rothbaum. It turned out that the result of their research proved to be beneficial in treating phobias, especially: acrophobia (the fear of heights). With such a breakthrough in psychological science, Albert Carlin and Hunter Hoffman, both psychologists, theorized VR as being a potential cure against arachnophobia (the fear of spiders).

Studies have continuously been made in the field of VR healthcare, and many conclusions have been made that the technology could be used for PTSD, anxiety-related disorders, and phobias in general. Emmy-nominated journalist, Hannah Kuchler says: “People on opiates could be given a VR tour of what their body would look like after years of addiction”, suggesting that VR could play a major role against addictive disorders.

According to statista.com: “As of 2018, the North American healthcare AR and VR industry was valued at 477 million U.S. dollars. By 2025, that is expected to increase dramatically to 4.64 billion U.S. dollars.” The business perspective for such technology is underlyingly huge. With all the studies, all the positive feedback from the doctors and the patients, what could be the challenges for the technology?

Challenges to VR

With respect to Dr. Kalpana Srivastava, side effects to VR are: “dizziness, nausea, headache, eye strain, reduced limb control, reduced postural control, decreased sense of presence, and the development of responses inappropriate to the real world”. In other words, to be optimal and ready to be used efficiently, engineers still need to find a way to better VR.

With the exponential growth of VR in healthcare, one can hope that companies will make the technology side-effectless and hopefully financially accessible to most people.

Should you use VR?

VR has proved through history to be beneficial for mental health, there is even a word for it: VR exposure therapy (VRET). Its scalability is incontestable, and anxiety disorders being the most common of mental disorders “affecting nearly 18.1% of adults” (frontiersin.org, 2019), the potential is more than just promising.

In my humble opinion, if I had to recommend VR for health issues, I would definitely do so. For the skeptics, alternatives still exist today such as traditional therapy, or on the more unconventional spectrum, hypnosis. Yet, with all the studies and practices that have been done, it is clear that if you suffer from mental health disorders, VR is a solution today.

Sources used:

History Of Virtual Reality

What is Virtual Reality? [Definition and Examples]

https://careersinpsychology.org/why-virtual-reality-transform-mental-health-treatment/#:~:text=Therapists%20began%20to%20use%20virtual,therapy%20in%20mental%20health%20treatment

https://www.ft.com/content/1a9a4cac-83cb-11e8-96dd-fa565ec55929

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1033162/healthcare-ar-and-vr-market-forecast-worldwide-by-region/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4361984/

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00773/full#:~:text=Incorporating%20VR%20in%20therapy%20can,in%20vivo%20or%20imaginal%20exposure.

Tagged health, Tech, vr

28 November 2019

2 Comments

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Paralysis and AI

Reading Time: 3 minutesEvery year, thousands of people around the world experience various neurological diseases like stroke and spinal cord injuries. Due to these diseases, many of them have paralysis. Such people are almost completely isolated from the social life, from any communication with doctors and relatives. That is why it is sometimes even impossible to avoid the usage of expensive equipment. There are already technologies in the world for reading thoughts and turning them into text messages at up to eight words per minute, but recently, scientists from the US state of Illinois have been able to improve this indicator. Artificial intelligence helped them greatly.

ScienceMag introduced this technology. In their article they described the experiment in which a new technology returns the possibility of communication to the patient with the so-called tetraplegia. During the experiment, patient with implanted electrodes imagined how he would move a hand if he wrote letters. Certainly, during this process brain showed some activity, which ,as the result, was remembered by AI. Then computer was able to remember the place of the activity in the brain connected with particular letter of the alphabet and was able to display symbols alternately that patient mentally traced on the screen.

According to the scientists, AI is able to recognize symbols with 95% accuracy. AI make several mistakes only with similar letters like «g» and «q», for example. Regardless this, now paralyzed person can text with the speed of 66 words per minute. To compare, the speed of texting of healthy person is 120 words per minute.

By the way, thoughts can be even transformed into the speech.

According to the editors of ScienceMag, researchers from Germany and the USA used some computational models based on neural networks, they reconstructed words and sentences by reading brain signals, as it was mentioned before. So the system is the same, they just observed areas of the brain at those moments when people read aloud, speak, or simply listen to notes.

During this research, they relied on data obtained from 5 people with epilepsy. The network analyzed the behavior of the auditory cortex (which is active both during speech and during listening). Then the computer reconstructed the speech data from the pulses received from these people. As a result, the algorithm coped with an accuracy of 75%.

Another team relied on the data of 6 people, that experienced the removing of brain tumor. Microphone picked up their voices when they read out loud different words. While this process, the electrodes recorded information from the speech center of the brain. Then computer compared the data from the electrodes with audio recording. Only 40% was correct as the result.

The third team from the University of California reconstructed entire sentences based on brain activity from three patients with epilepsy who read specific sentences out loud. Some sentences were correctly identified in more than 80% of cases.

Regardless such appealing results, the system has a lot of shortcomings and is needed to be adjusted. However, it will be developed even more, so millions of people will have an opportunity to text and to speak once again.

References:

Tagged AI, health, science

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A blog on technology, run by Kozminski University students and supervised by NeRDS

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