Machines Learn the Difference Between Autism and Schizophrenia

Autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia — one is a developmental disorder affecting communication and behavior, while the other causes those affected to interpret reality abnormally. Though seemingly completely different conditions, neuroscientists have, for a long time, suspected a strong link between them. Not only do some of the presentations of these disorders overlap, but autism spectrum disorder patients are 10 times more likely to develop schizophrenia than those from the general population.

The clinical challenge is that most of the diagnostic procedures for psychiatric conditions are largely subjective and rely on psychiatrists picking up on sometimes extremely subtle behavioral cues to make a definitive diagnosis. Researchers at the University of Tokyo believe that a powerful combo of next-generation brain imaging technologies and machine learning could be the key to radically transforming mental health care as we know it.

…the machine’s diagnoses matched the psychiatric assessment with up to 85 percent accuracy.

In a recent study published in Translational Psychiatry, Shinsuke Koike and colleagues designed machine learning algorithms, training them to interpret magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans from…