As we get older, our brains start to slow down just like the rest of our body. But sometimes our brain can age too fast, and that's never good news. Thankfully, scientists at Drexel University have figured out a cool way to use artificial intelligence (AI) to check on your brain's "actual age".
They trained an AI model by feeding it brain scan data from lots of healthy folks. Now it can look at your brain's activity pattern and give a pretty good guess about how "youthful" it is! Knowing early that your brain is aging too fast could help catch problems down the road, like Alzheimer's, before symptoms start.
The team led by professor John Kounios figured out brain age by having the AI study EEG scans. EEGs detect brain waves and are easy to do, so this method could let more people check in on brain health over time. With AI helping out, maybe we can start catching problems sooner to help more people stay sharp as long as possible!
AI for Spotting Brain Age!
Have you ever met someone and tried to guess how old they are? Maybe their hair is grey or they have wrinkles. But sometimes people can look younger or older than they are! That's kinda how our brains work too.
The scientists at Drexel led by Professor Kounious used AI to help figure out brain age. Just like we can study lots of healthy folks' faces to learn what makes people look their age, AI can do the same thing with brain scans!
It looked at MRIs from many people and correlated what it saw in the scans with how old each person really was. Now when it sees a new MRI, it can give a pretty good guess of "brain age" based on what it learned. Cool right?!
Even better, the team taught AI to do this same trick but using EEGs instead of big MRIs. Since EEGs are easier to get, more people could check in on brain health over time. With AI's help, we might be able to spot issues before any problems start. Your brain will thank you!
Spot Your Brain Age Gap with AI
Have you ever wondered if your brain is aging faster than others your age? Scientists think tracking "brain age gap" can be a good sign of future health. According to Professor Kounious, if your brain looks the same age as similarly aged healthy folks, then all is well!
But if your brain seems older, that could mean faster aging - also called a "brain-age gap". Things that cause an age gap are diseases, toxins, poor diet or injuries in the past. Having a larger gap may make somebody more at risk for conditions like Alzheimer's down the road.
Luckily, AI can now estimate brain age easily from EEG scans like it was taught to do. But even though brain age is so important, it hasn't been part of regular doctor checkups yet. By making brain age affordable and simple to check with AI's help, maybe doctors can spot issues sooner and people can take steps to protect brain health as we all get older!
AI Makes Checking Brain Age Easy and Affordable
Checking brain health usually requires expensive MRIs, right? Not anymore thanks to some clever scientists! Professor Kounious and his team developed an AI model that can estimate your brain age using an EEG.
An EEG just records your brain waves using a simple headset - way less costly and hassle-free compared to giant MRI tubes. Once trained on EEG brain data, their AI program learned to analyze patterns and link them to a person's real age.
Making brain age screening so easy and cheap means it could actually be done regularly, like at your yearly checkup. This is a big deal because lifestyle changes might slow aging, but we need quick tests to see their effects over time.
Now docs may be able to spot issues early before problems start. And since it's low-cost, anyone could monitor their brain's "stats" and if their efforts are paying off! Thanks to AI, keeping an eye on brain health just got way more practical.
AI for a Younger, Healthier Brain Gets Real!
Remember that cool tech we talked about that uses AI to check your brain age from an EEG? Well, the scientists from Drexel who created it just inked a sweet deal!
They've licensed the technology to a Canadian healthcare company called DiagnaMed Holdings. Now DiagnaMed can build the brain scan analysis into their digital health programs.
Pretty soon, we may see this AI brain check showing up everywhere from doctors offices to wellness apps on our phones. Instead of just researching it in labs, people will actually be able to easily monitor their brain health over time.
Big thanks to Professor Kounious, Dr. Zhang, Dr. Oh and Dr. Fleck for all their hard work perfecting this brain age AI. With champions like them helping bring novel tech from theory to practice, this may help a whole lot of people everywhere live with sharper minds well into the future!
References:
Brain-age estimation with a low-cost EEG-headset
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnrgo.2024.1340732/full
New AI technology estimates brain age using low-cost EEG device
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-04-ai-technology-brain-age-eeg.html
Tags:
Brain • Artificial intelligence • Electroencephalography • Ageing