An Innovative technique based on artificial intelligence for detecting fluid flow around the blood arteries in the brain may significantly affect the creation of drugs to treat conditions like Alzheimer’s. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published this study.
Waste is transported around the brain and removed by the perivascular spaces surrounding cerebral blood arteries. Even though they are challenging to assess in vivo, changes in fluid flow have been associated with neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s, small vessel disease, strokes, and traumatic brain injuries.
This study used innovative AI velocimetry data to precisely calculate brain fluid flow. It was carried out by a diverse team of mechanical engineers, neuroscience researchers, and computational scientists under the direction of University of Rochester Associate Professor Douglas Kelley.
According to Kelley, a professor in Rochester’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, “In this study, we combined some measurements from within the animal models with an innovative AI technique that enabled us to accurately gauge things that nobody’s previously been able to measure.”
The research relies on years of research conducted under Maiken Nedergaard’s direction, who is also the co-director of Rochester’s Centre for Translational Neuro-medicine. Before this, the team could perform two-dimensional research on fluid flow in perivascular regions by infusing microscopic particles in the fluid and tracking their velocity and position over time. But in order to fully comprehend the system’s complexity, scientists needed more tough measures, and probing such a crucial, fluid system is complex.
George Karniadakis from Brown University worked with the team to use artificial intelligence to solve that problem. They combined the current 2D data with neural networks that were guided by physics to provide previously unheard-of high-resolution views of the system.
According to Kelley, this allows us to reveal pressures, power, and a three-dimensional flow rate more accurately. Because the exact pumping mechanism that drives all these fluxes around the brain is still unknown, pressure is crucial. It’s a brand-new pitch.
The National Institutes of Health Brain Initiative, the Army Research Office’s Multidisciplinary University Research Initiatives program, and the Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience program all funded the study.
Artificial Intelligence Velocimetry suggests in vivo perivascular space flows in outstanding detail, which may enhance fluid dynamic models and possibly shed light on how Cerebral spinal Fluid flow changes with aging, Alzheimer’s illness, and small vessel disease.
