Approval has been received for the use of brain scans to build a software tool that researchers hope will be able to predict a person's risk of dementia.

 

A team of scientists and clinical researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh and Dundee will use a unique, large data set made up of CT and MRI brain scans from patients in Scotland from 2008 to 2018, representing 1.6 million images.

 

The team will then use artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyse the image data alongside linked health records such as demographics and treatment history, without patients being identifiable, to find patterns that could indicate a person’s risk of developing dementia.

 

The ultimate aim is to build a digital healthcare tool that radiologists can use when scanning for other conditions to determine a person’s dementia risk, and to diagnose early stages of related diseases, such as Alzheimer’s.

 

Isolating a patient group with a high risk of dementia will enable the development of more precise treatments for various types of dementia, mostly Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia.