Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust have introduced a new brain scanner with AI integration as part of a research initiative with Kent and Medway Medical School (KMMS) and Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU). The aim of the initiative is to gain a better understanding of mental health conditions and dementia, in hopes of achieving “one of the biggest changes in decades to the way dementia assessments are conducted”.
The low-field MRI scanner, said to be more portable than a traditional MRI scanner, has the potential to “enhance diagnostic accuracy and improve treatment options,” according to Dr Afifa Qazi, chief medical officer at KMPT. By using the scanner alongside AI technology, the trust will now investigate the structure of the brain to find links with patient symptoms, aiming to make brain scans more accessible within the community.
Professor Sukhi Shergill, director of research at KMPT, highlighted how research can help in treating mental illness: “This opportunity could lead to breakthroughs in understanding a number of mental illnesses like anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia. We want to examine the networks in people’s brains, over time and at scale, to see how they differ with developing mental illness. By investigating brain connectivity and its structure, we can identify links with symptoms and determine which treatments can help restore healthy brain connections.”
The new tech is currently being used in CCCU, where researchers are assessing the ability of the scanner to “speed up the diagnosis of dementia” and enhance their overall understanding of mental health. This collaboration between the trust, KMMS and CCCU is reportedly “leading the way” when it comes to exploring this type of scanner within the UK, made possible through funding from a grant awarded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research.
Senior lecturer at KMMS and consultant psychiatrist at KMPT, Dr Joanne Rodda, discussed the potential benefits of using this technology within healthcare: “Our work will begin by testing whether the scanner can make it easier and quicker to diagnose dementia, which is currently one of the biggest challenges we face in healthcare. It could be a huge step forward in speeding up dementia assessments, giving patients their results more quickly wherever they live, and making the whole process fairer and more joined up.”
The project aligns with the trust’s wider five-year primary care strategy, where they outline plans to improve patient access through the use of digital tech. This includes establishing a digital front door, the increased use of the NHS App and using digital appointment systems.
Investing in brain scanning tech: the wider trend
The NIHR recently awarded a share of £3 million to 35 innovations aiming to tackle acquired brain injuries, including a new point-of-care device for the stratification and management of brain injuries, smart interactive reminders, a concussion management app and an AI algorithm, which offers personalised rehabilitation for stroke patients.
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust is trialling a new approach to help reduce patient waiting times and allow staff to work more flexibly. By extending their opening hours, the trust can now reportedly see “306 extra patients” a month, with the addition of new scanning technology also allowing radiographers to operate the MRI scanner remotely, leading to positive patient feedback and the increased availability of appointments.
Edinburgh University and Imperial College London recently developed AI software which can reportedly read the brain scans of stroke patients to better understand when the stroke happened and whether it can be successfully treated. The AI algorithm was trained on a dataset of 800 brain scans where the stroke time was already known, with researchers reporting that the software has been “twice as accurate as using a standard visual method”.
