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UMBC to study use of AI for neurodegenerative diseases

alzheimers
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CATONSVILLE, Md. — UMBC recently got a nearly-$900,000 grant to see if a popular AI-based technology can help treat neurodegenerative diseases.

The technology is called "digital twinning," and involves making a virtual model of a physical object.

The UMBC team will work on making a prototype "digital twin" that can be used for neuroscience research - and will also discuss the ethics of using "digital twins" in healthcare.

Snigdhansu (Ansu) Chatterjee, lead investigator of the UMBC study, said in an article:

There are various issues relating to the ethics of AI models and how you use the data, which is especially important when it comes to biological sciences and healthcare. All good scientists stay within ethical guardrails, and we’re defining what those guardrails are when it comes to using this technology to study neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis.

The grant is from the U.S. National Science Foundation, in partnership with National Institutes of Health and U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

NSF's program - which focuses on "digital twins" in biomedical innovation - gave funds to seven institutions, including UMBC.

The UMBC study will run through 2027.

One of the researchers, Karuna Joshi, said there's been an increase in AI models used in healthcare.