NIH Awards $2.5 Million to Detect Early Cognitive Decline

Feb. 20, 2023

Brigham and Women's Hospital and Melax Tech announced via a Feb. 16 press release that NIH has awarded $2.5 million to the organizations for a project that aims to detect early cognitive decline through NLP algorithms

Janette Wider

According to a Feb. 16 press release, Houston-based Melax Tech, biomedical natural language processing (NLP) technology company, and Boston-based Brigham and Women's Hospital, have announced a two-year $2.5 million grant by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The joint project will focus on building and validating a clinical decision support system (CDS) for detection of early cognitive decline. NLP algorithms will be used in the study to identify patients with cognitive decline signals from electronic health records and aims to better early diagnosis in primary care settings.

The press release states that “The project will focus on two main objectives:

1. Develop novel computational algorithms, including ontology, deep learning, and NLP, to identify patients with early cognitive decline using EHR with supporting evidence.

2. Work with frontline physicians to design, develop and evaluate a user-centered clinical decision-support system to identify and manage patients with cognitive decline and prompt personalized recommendations for timely care.”

Further, “This project is supported by the National Institute On Aging of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R44AG081006. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.”

Lead researcher Dr. Li Zhou of Brigham and Women's Hospital was quoted in the release saying that "This study is a critical step in our mission to improve the lives of those affected by Alzheimer's disease and related dementia. Using deep learning algorithms and electronic health records can revolutionize how we approach early detection and intervention for AD/ADRD."