Washington: Researchers are using software used to process satellite images from space to establish a method for wide-scale screening for Alzheimer`s disease.
Used in analysing magnetic resonance images (MRIs), the AlzTools 3D Slicer tool was produced by computer scientists at Spain`s Elecnor Deimos, who drew on years of experience developing software for ESA`s Envisat satellite to create a program that adapted the space routines to analyse human brain scans.
Carlos Fernandez de la Pena of Deimos said that if a person has a space image and they have to select part of an image - a field or crops -they need special routines to extract the information.
Working for ESA, the team gained experience in processing raw satellite image data by using sophisticated software routines, then homing in on and identifying specific elements.
Fernandez de la Pena said that looking at and analysing satellite images can be compared to what medical doctors have to do to understand scans like MRIs.
Adapting the techniques for analysing complicated space images to an application for medical scientists researching into the Alzheimer disease required close collaboration between Deimos and specialists from the Technical University of Madrid.
The tool is now used for Alzheimer`s research at the Medicine Faculty at the University of Castilla La Mancha in Albacete in Spain.
Using AlzTools, Deimos scientists work with raw data from a brain scan rather than satellite pictures. Instead of a field or a road in a satellite image, they look at brain areas like the hippocampus, where atrophy is associated with Alzheimer`s.
ANI
