Researchers are hoping artificial intelligence can be used to predict the risk of dementia based on almost a million routine eye tests carried out by opticians in Scotland.
The dataset – thought to be the largest in the world – is to be investigated by the University of Edinburgh with support from Glasgow Caledonian University, to see if AI can find patterns that could indicate a person’s risk of developing dementia.
Data scientists and clinical researchers in partnership with high street opticians have developed a new digital tool, which they hope will be able to analyse retinal images, and then link them with relevant data on a patient’s demographics, treatment history and pre-existing conditions.
The NeurEYE research team resource will help develop software which opticians will be able to use as a predictive or diagnostic tool for conditions such as Alzheimer’s. It will also help triage patients and refer them to secondary health services if signs of brain disease are spotted. It could also potentially be used as a way to monitor cognitive decline, experts say.
“The eye can tell us far more than we thought possible,” said Baljean Dhillon, Professor of Clinical Ophthalmology at the University of Edinburgh and NeurEYE co-lead.
“The blood vessels and neural pathways of retina and brain are intimately related. But, unlike the brain, we can see the retina with the simple, inexpensive equipment found in every high street in the UK and beyond.”
Identifying people at risk of dementia could also accelerate the development of new treatments by pinpointing those who are more likely to benefit from trials and enabling better monitoring of how they respond to treatment.
It could also help individuals and medical professionals modify the risk of developing dementia through lifestyle changes such as physical activity and diet.
The data is anonymised and held safely in the Scottish National Safe Haven, which provides a secure platform for the research use of NHS electronic data. The resource is commissioned by Public Health Scotland and hosted by the Edinburgh International Data Facility through EPCC at the University of Edinburgh.
Permission to use the data comes from the Public Benefit and Privacy Panel for Health and Social Care, a part of NHS Scotland.
The project is the second one supported by NEURii, a global collaboration between the University of Edinburgh, pharmaceutical company Eisai, Gates Ventures, medical research charity LifeArc and the national health data science institute Health Data Research UK. The research teams are supported by Edinburgh Innovations, the University’s commercialisation service.
NEURii is giving innovative digital projects the chance to become real world solutions that could benefit millions of patients with neurodegenerative conditions like dementia. The first NEURii project, SCAN-DAN, is using brain scans and AI to predict dementia risk.
