AI tool to be tested for improved Parkinson’s diagnosis

(From left) Angelos Barmpoutis, Ph.D.; Michael Okun, M.D.; and David Vaillancourt, Ph.D.
(From left) Angelos Barmpoutis, Ph.D.; Michael Okun, M.D.; and David Vaillancourt, Ph.D.

By Michelle Koidin Jaffee

University of Florida researchers will broadly test a new artificial intelligence tool aimed at distinguishing the precise diagnosis for patients with early Parkinson’s disease or two related but distinct Parkinson’s-like syndromes under a new $5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health announced March 18.

The three distinct neurodegenerative disorders — Parkinson’s disease; multiple system atrophy Parkinsonian variant, or MSAp; and progressive supranuclear palsy, or PSP — can be difficult to differentiate because they share overlapping motor and non-motor features, such as changes in gait. But they also have important differences in pathology and prognosis, and obtaining an accurate diagnosis is key to determining the best possible treatment for patients as well as developing improved therapies of the future. Previous research has shown that accuracy of diagnosis in early Parkinson’s can be as low as 58%, and more than half of misdiagnosed patients actually have one of the two variants.

Testing of the new AI tool, which will include MRI images from 315 patients at 21 sites across North America, builds upon more than a decade of research in the laboratory of David Vaillancourt, Ph.D., a professor and chair of the UF College of Health & Human Performance’s department of applied physiology and kinesiology, whose work is focused on improving the lives of more than 6 million people with Parkinson’s disease and Parkinson’s-like syndromes.

Read the full press release. 

[These images were taken prior to national guidelines of face coverings and physical distancing.]