National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU) and Taipei Veterans General Hospital have made a breakthrough in medical diagnosis. Together, they created an advanced brain imaging system that helps identify cerebral regression in patients with mental health conditions. This innovative system, called Brain Probe, won the Gold Award at this year’s Edison Awards in the category of Advancements in Neurological Treatments.
The system quantifies how different regions of the brain regress due to aging or mental disorders. This development allows doctors to better assess and track changes in the brain over time. Albert Yang, the Dean of NYCU’s School of Medicine, explained that traditional neuropsychiatric diagnoses relied heavily on patient interviews and family medical histories. Now, doctors can use this new brain imaging system to obtain precise measurements of brain degradation in patients.
Initially, Brain Probe was developed with the aim of diagnosing schizophrenia. However, the platform holds potential for diagnosing a range of major neuropsychiatric diseases. The system is based on long-term data tracking brain aging and disease-related regression. Researchers have developed a model that tracks changes in the gray and white matter of 138 brain regions, providing doctors with a detailed understanding of brain health.
The model can predict how a patient’s brain might regress based on age or the stage of their illness. By pinpointing critically abnormal areas in the brain, doctors can prescribe more effective treatments. This is a significant improvement over previous technology, which struggled to show clear relationships between brain imaging and symptoms.
Currently, the brain imaging system is used for research and clinical assessments of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder. Research has revealed that schizophrenic patients experience substantial brain shrinkage over 22 years after diagnosis. This system also shows that bipolar and depressive patients have abnormalities in the anterior cingulate cortex.
This new technology provides valuable information for doctors, enabling them to target areas for treatments like transcranial magnetic stimulation and deep brain stimulation more precisely.
