Two Students Make Big Discovery
Two smart grad students, Matthew Kolisnyk and Karnig Kazazian, have come up with a new way to guess which patients in the ICU will get better after a bad brain injury.
They used brain scans and computer smarts to do it. The pair are studying at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry.
They’re working under Adrian Owen, a big-name brain scientist. Owen says we’ve been in the dark for years about knowing who will get better after such injuries.
How It All Works
When someone gets a really bad brain injury, maybe from a car crash or a stroke, their life can change forever. It’s a really scary time for families.
They have questions like, “Will my loved one get better? Do they know what’s happening? Will they ever be the same?” Doctors and nurses don’t have all the answers either.
This team, which also included brain doctors from London Health Sciences Centre and Lawson Health Research Institute, wanted to solve this problem.
They looked at 25 patients in London’s ICUs right after they got their brain injuries. They used special scans to see how the patients’ brains were doing.
Loretta Norton, a psychology professor at King’s University College at Western, led the team. She was one of the first people ever to look at brain activity in the ICU.
She said, “If the different parts of the brain are talking to each other well, there’s a good chance the person will wake up.”
That’s when they had a “lightbulb moment.” They realized they could use Artificial Intelligence, basically a computer that can learn, to make their guess even better.
The result? They could guess who would get better with about 80% accuracy. That’s a lot better than what doctors can do right now.
What’s Next?
This is a big deal, but it’s not perfect. More research needs to be done. “Our computer model needs to see more patients’ data to get even smarter,” said Kazazian.
So, what does all this mean for you and me? Imagine your loved one is in the ICU with a bad brain injury. The doctor doesn’t know what will happen.
But soon, thanks to these students and their team, doctors might have a much better idea. It could be a game-changer for families going through a really hard time, giving them a clearer picture of what to expect.
This isn’t just good news for people with brain injuries. It’s also great for the world of medicine. We’re learning that computers and Artificial Intelligence can help us in ways we never thought possible. And who knows? Maybe this is just the beginning.
If you care about brain health, please read studies about The blood pressure numbers and your brain health and findings of The future of Parkinson’s prediction: it’s in your blood and brain.
For more information about brain health, please see recent studies that blueberry supplements may prevent cognitive decline, and results showing Plant-based diets could protect cognitive health from air pollution.
The research findings can be found in the Journal of Neurology.
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