(Image : Kobizmedia / Korea Bizwire)
SEOUL, Oct. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — A South Korean research team has developed a program that can be used for the diagnosis of early Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment by automatically analyzing changes in brain volume.
The research team at the Catholic University of Korea’s College of Medicine said Tuesday that it had developed an automatic brain volume analysis program called QbraVo that can analyze changes in brain volume in a fast and accurate manner using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
In general, changes in brain volume occur in the initial stages of Alzheimer’s disease. As dementia progresses, brain volume decreases, with the cerebral cortex becoming thinner.
The accuracy of the diagnosis using this method, however, was lower than that of existing cognitive function inspection primarily due to a high personal difference.
To address such shortcomings, the research team established a new Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis model reflecting the results of existing cognitive function inspection in the newly-developed standardized shrink volume ratio based on the anatomical structure of the brain.
In a test conducted with a normal group (56 persons), a mild cognitive impairment group (44 persons) and an Alzheimer’s disease dementia group (45 persons), the new model took only five minutes and 36 seconds on average to identify the disease.
The diagnosis accuracy for dementia and mild cognitive impairment was also high at 92.9 percent and 79 percent, respectively.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
