New Image Analysis Could Up Schizophrenia Treatment Game

Independent Vector Analysis (IVA) is a new tool for effective analysis of the subgroups of fMRI using brain activity. These subgroups have clinical significance in the diagnosis and treatment of certain diseases like schizophrenia.

The new image analysis method called Independent Vector Analysis (IVA) uses brain activity to categorise the subgroups of functional MRI or fMRI, thereby proving the connection between brain activity and certain mental illness. This new tool will help to identify the subgroups of conditions like schizophrenia using the analyzed fMRI data.

The image analysis method developed by the researchers at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) in the US is called independent vector analysis (IVA) for common subspace extraction (CS).

About Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by symptoms of thought, behavior and social problems.

‘Schizophrenia was previously thought to be difficult to group based on brain imaging alone, but the new Independent Vector Analysis (IVA) of fMRI has proven that there is a significant connection between a patient's brain activity and their diagnoses, improving the scope of treatment.’
Read More..

Through this method, they were able to categorise subgroups of functional MRI data based solely on brain activity, proving that there is a connection between brain activity and certain mental illnesses, said the study published in the journal NeuroImage.

In particular, they were able to identify subgroups of schizophrenia patients using the functional MRI data that they analysed.

Previously, there was not a clear way to group schizophrenia in patients based on brain imaging alone, but the methods developed by UMBC researchers showed that there is a significant connection between a patient's brain activity and their diagnoses.

Antipsychotic Medications - Types, Side Effects and Precautionary Measures
Antipsychotics are the class of drugs which help in treating mental disorders like schizophrenia, bipolar disorders and other stress related psychosis symptoms.

"The most exciting part is that we found out the identified subgroups possess clinical significance by looking at their diagnostic symptoms," explained Qunfang Long, a Ph.D. candidate at UMBC.

"This finding encouraged us to put more effort into the study of subtypes of patients with schizophrenia using neuroimaging data."

Incurable Diseases - Causes, Risk Factors, Complications, Diagnosis, Treatment, Prevention
Incurable diseases are disorders of infectious, non-infectious, genetic, metabolic, neoplastic or autoimmune nature that do not currently have a cure.

Their work can assist in diagnosis and treatment of patients with mental illnesses that can be difficult to identify.

It can also show medical practitioners whether the current treatments have or have not been working based on image groupings.

Schizoaffective Disorder - Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment & Prevention
Schizoaffective disorder is a serious mental disorder in which the individual reflects symptoms that occur both in schizophrenia and mood disorder.

"Now that data-driven methods have gained popularity, a big challenge has been capturing the variability for each subject while simultaneously performing analysis on fMRI datasets from a large number of subjects," said Tulay Adali, Professor at UMBC.

"Now we can perform this analysis effectively, and can identify meaningful groupings of subjects," Adali said.

Source-IANS