A New AI Mental Health Tool for African Americansdaily horoscope july 14 2021

A New AI Mental Health Tool for African Americansdaily horoscope july 14 2021Source: Thor_Deichmann/Pixabay

A new study published in Molecular Psychiatry shows how artificial intelligence (AI) machine learning combined with whole genome sequencing (WGS) data may help clinicians diagnose common mental health disorders for African Americans.

“In past few decades, protocols, such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), have improved the mental disorder diagnosis accuracy and efficiency significantly, but unlike many other diseases, objective screening methodologies and lab tests are still lacking for mental disorders due in part to the underlying disease heterogeneity,” wrote the research scientists at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) who authored the study.

In addition to the lack of objective screening methodologies, the researchers point out that co-occurrence of different types of mental disorders also present challenges.

“Accurate diagnosis of mental disorders can be difficult, and even more challenging in patients who suffer comorbid conditions with more than one type of mental disorders,” they wrote. “Although guidelines and standards based on the DSM are helping, the misdiagnosis rate is still high.”

To address this problem, the scientists combined artificial intelligence deep learning with genomics, and focused on eight common mental disorders. This study used genomic data from over 4,100 patients, including over 1,300 with a diagnosis of one or more of eight mental health disorders: ADHD, speech/language disorder, developmental delays, depression, anxiety, oppositional defiant disorder, autism, and intellectual disabilities. The blood-derived whole-genome sequencing (WGS) patient data came from the biobank at the Center for Applied Genomics at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Whole-genome sequencing is a common DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) sequencing method. DNA contains our genetic code. DNA sequencing is a lab technique that finds the exact sequence of the nitrogen bases in nucleotides (adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine) in a DNA molecule.

Whole-genome sequencing provides a highly comprehensive view of a person’s genetic variations—genomic information that may help identify inherited diseases and disorders. It refers to the laboratory procedure of sequencing the entire genome of an organism at one time. WGS may help find sequence variations that may cause phenotype differences between diseased and normal tissue cells.

The deep learning algorithm demonstrated “promising accuracy to differentiate patients versus controls, as well as the potential of labeling patients with multiple disorders.” Additionally, the deep neural network was able to identify multiple genomic areas that may be involved in the development of mental health disorders, paving the way for improved diagnosing and treatments in the future.