Revolutionising Mental Healthcare with AI and Sensing Technologies

Image credit: Steve Johnson via Unsplash

A team from the University of Southern California’s Center for Neurotechnology are developing a platform combining multimodal artificial intelligence (AI) and sensing technology to help track mental state, potentially revolutionising the future treatment of mental health conditions.

Led by Professor Maryam Shanechi, the multidisciplinary project sees someone’s mental state – such as their mood or stress level – decoded via novel AI and computing algorithms, enabling clinicians to provide patients with more personalised real-time treatment options.

With a grant of almost $7.5 million ($US5 million) from the US National Institutes of Health’s BRAIN Initiative, the multimodal AI algorithms are built on a range of sensor inputs including brain signals, heart rate, cortisol levels and behavioural signals.

“This effort will discover multimodal neural-physiological-behavioral biomarkers for mental states,” said Professor Shanechi.

“Realizing these AI-based neurotechnologies has the potential to revolutionize how we treat brain disorders… Doing so is a substantial challenge that requires a truly interdisciplinary effort between engineers, computer scientists, neuroscientists, and clinicians, whom we bring together in the Center.”

Read the full story via the University of Southern California.