IIT Guwahati’s algorithm to encode brain networks of healthy humans, patients with Parkinson’s
Researchers at IIT-Guwahati have developed a novel algorithm called Unique Brain Network Identification Number to encode the intricate brain networks of healthy humans and patients with Parkinson’s disease.
The study involved the analysis of structural brain MRI scans of 180 PD patients and 70 healthy individuals from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), India. The research funded by the Ministry of Education has been published in the journal Brain Sciences.
According to officials, the researchers adopted a network perspective, representing different brain regions as nodes and establishing connection values of the network based on regional grey matter volume.
Further, connection values for every node were weighted to capture the significance of each link by following a series of algorithmic steps, they said.
The obtained numerical representation (UBNIN) was observed to be distinct for each individual brain network, and also applicable to other neuroimaging brain modalities, they said.
This innovative research holds immense potential in the realm of brain printing and emerges as a promising biomarker with a numerical value for tracking mental illness progression over time, they said.
Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative disorder, with clinical symptoms such as tremors, stiffness, and slow movement, worsens with age. However, neurodegeneration begins long before these symptoms appear, making early detection imperative for effective PD management.
“UBNIN is a special number representing unique characteristics of each human brain from a network perspective. Interestingly, we can also reverse engineer any human’s UBNIN value to reconstruct the original brain network,” said Cota Navin Gupta, Assistant Professor, Neural Engineering Lab, Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati.
