Integrating Machine Learning, Digital Platforms to Alzheimer Trials: David Bates, PhD

WATCH TIME: 3 minutes

"It’s those little things like latencies, initiation speed, termination speed ratios, like stroke length, thinking, time processing, time placement, circularity. There’s so many different features that go together that when you have large enough datasets—which we do—you start to see what deviations from norm are associated with what kind of impairment."

The development of neuropathology associated with Alzheimer disease (AD) begins 15 to 20 years before overt symptoms, but the subtle changes in cognitive function during this preclinical phase often go undetected. Earlier detection and intervention, particularly during the window of opportunity before disease progression, can improve outcomes. Additionally, understanding patients’ cognitive status and potential trajectory can have major impacts on the outcomes of therapeutics being assessed for the neurodegenerative disorder.

The Linus Health digital platform, which encompasses assessments, clinical decision support, care planning, and more, helps facilitate early detection of cognitive and brain health issues, while empowering providers with actionable clinical recommendations and individuals with personalized action plans. The program includes the DCTclock, an FDA class II medical device that detects presymptomatic cognitive impairment. Considered a digital version of the classic Clock Drawing Test, DCTclock has been evaluated in several AD studies, and has shown to offer greater correlation with biomarkers and better discrimination between diagnostic groups than traditional neuropsychological tests.

At the 2022 Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease (CTAD) conference, held November 29 to December 2, in San Francisco, California, David Bates, PhD, chief executive officer and co-founder of Linus Health, sat down with NeurologyLive^® for an interview. Bates discussed several topics regarding the integration of new technology strategies that detect cognitive decline, the complexities with learning how to use these tools, and advantages they might bring. Additionally, he spoke specifically about how these approaches focus on the earliest prodromal symptoms of AD and identifying changes unseen to the naked eye.

Click here for more coverage of CTAD 2022.