Deep space and beyond: Applying machine learning to meet brain challenges near and far

When you have a stroke, experts say time is brain. The longer you wait for treatment, the more brain cells you lose, and the worse the outcomes will be. But what happens when the closest hospital is hours away, or in the case of astronauts on the Space Station, two full days away?

beplay苹果手机能用吗Uthealth生物医学信息学学院的研究人员结合了数据科学，机器学习和人工智能，以开发创新的解决方案，以应对健康挑战以改善我们社区的健康和福祉。Luca Giancardo, PhD, is leading efforts to speed up the diagnosis and treatment of stroke. His team was awarded one of six 2020 grants focused on advancing biomedical and health research in deep space from Baylor College of Medicine’s Translational Research Institute for Space Health.

Further complicating survival and recovery, the type of stroke—ischemic or hemorrhagic—dictates different courses of treatment. Hemorrhagic strokes occur when a blood vessel breaks and leaks blood into the brain, and ischemic strokes are caused by a clot blocking blood flow in the brain.

通常，使用MRI或CT扫描来确定类型，但是该设备不容易获得，除了在距离患者几英里的医院中。Giancardo的团队着手寻找可以放置在救护车和其他任何地方的替代方案。

视网膜摄像机 - 小型的小功率显微镜在眼科医生办公室中常见 - 使用高分辨率成像来拍摄眼睛内部的照片。

Giancardo说：“因为视网膜直接与大脑有关，我们认为我们可以将其用作代理人，看看大脑中发生了什么。”

The team’s goal is to develop an algorithm that examines three different types of images to evaluate what is happening to the vasculature of the retina.

他说：“这可能会对发病率和死亡率产生重大影响。”“而且我们拥有中风，眼科和机器学习的专业知识。”

The project is a collaboration between Giancardo; Sunil A. Sheth, MD, vascular and interventional neurologist at UTHealth Neurosciences and McGovern Medical School; Charles Green, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at McGovern Medical School; and Roomasa Chana, MD, an ophthalmologist at Baylor College of Medicine. The team garners additional support from UTHealth Institute for Stroke and Cerebrovascular Disease, which fosters collaborations in stroke research among the schools of UTHealth. This includes Sean I. Savitz, MD, and Amanda Jagolino-Cole, MD, who provide care through UTHealth Neurosciences.

While the research grant specifically focuses on strokes in space—where zero gravity and prolonged space radiation increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke in even the healthiest individuals—it has implications for rural areas of the United States and any place that lacks immediate access to diagnostic brain imaging equipment.

但是团队的研究并不止于此。beplay苹果手机能用吗Giancardo和Sheth最近帮助创建了一种算法，该算法识别大型血管闭塞，这是一种特定类型的缺血性中风，可阻止大脑中主要动脉的血液流动，并可能占缺血性中风的三分之一。使用将染料注射到体内和CT成像（评估血液流动的CT灌注成像）之外，该算法可以在一分钟内确定患者是否患有大血管闭塞并通知患者的医疗保健团队。该算法甚至有助于确定患者是否有资格进行血管内血栓切除术，这是一种微创治疗，在该治疗中，将微小的导管穿过血管穿过血管去除凝块。

Giancardo说：“当医生看到某人闭塞大船时，他们将他们送往一家大型医院进行CT灌注成像以确定这一点。”发生这种情况时，宝贵的时间就会浪费。“我们想看看我们是否可以使用CT Imaging创建CT灌注代理，这在较小的医院很容易获得。

Giancardo’s team at the Center for Precision Health at the School of Biomedical Informatics has established a pipeline to translate research at UTHealth into something that can benefit the patients immediately. Philanthropy can accelerate discoveries like this by providing seed funding to initiate high-risk, high-reward projects and garner the data necessary to apply for larger funding sources.

吉安卡多说：“对于大多数联邦资助机构，如果幸运的话，周转时间为六个月。”“这是很长一段时间，尤其是在我的世界中，事态发展迅速。”

And like the experts say: Time is brain.

破坏凝块

During a thrombectomy, a tiny catheter is threaded through the arteries to physically remove the clot and restore blood flow. Although lifesaving in many cases, the standard treatment for an ischemic stroke caused by a large vessel occlusion may provide no benefit for more than a third of patients - a statistic that does not sit well withP. Roc Chen, MD, a physician-scientist at UTHealth Neurosciences.

“We have a significant opportunity to improve acute stroke treatment,” Chen said.

中风治疗医师之间的重大争论涉及患者在全身麻醉或有意识的镇静下是否有更好的结局。尽管一些回顾性研究有利于有意识的镇静，但他们遭受了一种被称为选择偏见的研究短缺：因为医生倾向于将最严重的中风患者（在全身麻醉下）置于阳性结果的可能性（他们不beplay苹果手机能用吗太可能产生阳性结果），因此这种方法可能错误地似乎是错误的。导致结果差。

Chen与Uthealth机构审查委员会合作，以迅速入学，陈达成一项由慈善事业和行业赠款资助的多中心随机研究，以寻求更明确的答案，以确保未来的护理标准。

他说：“这可能是其他中风研究的里程碑。”“我希望这将有助于解决辩论。”

陈还将目光投向了脑血管痉挛，脑动脉瘤破裂，脑血管中的斑点较弱，气囊爆发。近一半的破裂患者会死亡，但许多人并非来自破裂本身。当泄漏的血液分解时，它会刺激附近的血管，从而导致脑血管痉挛导致中风。通过分析过去破裂治疗的数据，Chen发现三种药物的组合有助于改善患者的结果，因此他发起了一项多中心临床试验以评估该方法的有效性。

然而，即使在成功治疗后，遭受动脉瘤的患者也必须跟进医生进行定期血管造影的侵入性手术，许多患者由于成本高而跳过，以检查重新发生。Chen正在研究由美国国立卫生研究院资助的项目，以确定计算机算法是否可以分析简单的X射线图像，以确定再次引起动脉瘤的风险。

他说：“如果患者只需要X射线检查，这可能会大大提高随访率。”“我们越容易制定过程，我们可以挽救的生命就越多。”

published on03/29/2021at 4:00 p.m.