Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a long-lasting medical condition that poses significant challenges for diagnosis and management because of its complex and poorly understood nature. It affects millions of people around the globe, predominantly women, causing widespread pain, fatigue, cognitive impairments, and mood disturbances. The lack of objective measures to address FMS complicates its assessment, often leading to delayed or misdiagnosed cases. By hindering daily activities and productivity, FMS negatively impacts the quality of the patient’s life. Innovative approaches that use medical data, such as bio-signals and bioimaging, combined with machine learning techniques, hold the promise of deepening our knowledge of FMS, which might in turn lead to systems that offer efficient, precise, and personalized physician support. Furthermore, artificial intelligence-driven identification of biomarkers and patient subgroups could improve FMS management. In this systematic review, we explore the role of artificial intelligence in understanding FMS pathophysiology, discuss the present limitations, and shed light on future research avenues, aiming to translate findings into improved clinical outcomes.

Background and objective: Chronic respiratory diseases, such as asthma and COPD, pose significant challenges to human health and global healthcare systems. This pioneering study utilises AI analysis and modelling of cough and respiratory sound signals to classify and differentiate between asthma, COPD, and healthy subjects. The aim is to develop an AI-based diagnostic system capable of accurately distinguishing these conditions, thereby enhancing early detection and clinical management. Our study, therefore, presents the first AI system that leverages dual acoustic signals to enhance the diagnostic ACC of asthma using automated, lightweight deep learning models. Methods: To build an automated, lightweight model for asthma detection, tested separately with respiratory and cough sounds to assess their suitability for detecting asthma and COPD, the proposed AI models integrate the following ML algorithms: RF, SVM, DT, NN, and KNN, with an overall aim to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed method for future clinical use. Model training and validation were performed using 5-fold cross-validation, wherein the dataset was randomly divided into five folds and the models were trained and tested iteratively to ensure robust performance. We evaluated the model outcomes with several performance metrics: ACC, precision, recall, F1 score, and area under the AUC. Additionally, a majority voting ensemble technique was employed to aggregate the predictions of the various classifiers for improved diagnostic reliability. We applied Gabor time–frequency transformation for feature extraction and NCA) for feature selection to optimise predictive accuracy. Independent comparative experiments were conducted, where cough-sound subsets were used to evaluate asthma detection capabilities, and respiratory-sound subsets were used to evaluate COPD detection capabilities, allowing for targeted model assessment. Results: The proposed ensemble approach, facilitated by a majority voting approach for model efficacy evaluation, achieved acceptable ACC values of 94.05% and 83.31% for differentiating between asthma and normal cases utilising separate respiratory sounds and cough sounds, respectively. The results highlight a substantial benefit in integrating multiple classifier models and sound modalities while demonstrating an unprecedented level of ACC and robustness for future diagnostic predictions of the disease. Conclusions: The present study sets a new benchmark in AI-based detection of respiratory diseases by integrating cough and respiratory sound signals for future diagnostics. The successful implementation of a dual-sound analysis approach promises advancements in the early detection and management of asthma and COPD.We conclude that the proposed model holds strong potential to transform asthma diagnostic practices and support clinicians in their respiratory healthcare practices.

Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is a common yet often undiagnosed cardiac arrhythmia with serious clinical consequences, including increased risk of stroke, heart failure, and mortality. In this work, we present a novel Embedded Edge system performing real-time AF detection on a low-power Microcontroller Unit (MCU). Rather than relying on full Electrocardiogram (ECG) waveforms or cloud-based analytics, our method extracts Heart Rate Variability (HRV) features from RR-Interval (RRI) and performs classification using a compact Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) model optimized for embedded deployment. We achieved an overall classification accuracy of 98.46% while maintaining a minimal resource footprint: inference on the target MCU completes in 143 ± 0 ms and consumes 3532 ± 6 μJ per inference. This low power consumption for local inference makes it feasible to strategically keep wireless communication OFF, activating it only to transmit an alert upon AF detection, thereby reinforcing privacy and enabling long-term battery life. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of performing clinically meaningful AF monitoring directly on constrained edge devices, enabling energy-efficient, privacy-preserving, and scalable screening outside traditional clinical settings. This work contributes to the growing field of personalised and decentralised cardiac care, showing that Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven diagnostics can be both technically practical and clinically relevant when implemented at the edge.

Objective: In this paper, we explore the correlation between performance reporting and the development of inclusive AI solutions for biomedical problems. Our study examines the critical aspects of bias and noise in the context of medical decision support, aiming to provide actionable solutions. Contributions: A key contribution of our work is the recognition that measurement processes introduce noise and bias arising from human data interpretation and selection. We introduce the concept of “noise-bias cascade” to explain their interconnected nature. While current AI models handle noise well, bias remains a significant obstacle in achieving practical performance in these models. Our analysis spans the entire AI development lifecycle, from data collection to model deployment. Recommendations: To effectively mitigate bias, we assert the need to implement additional measures such as rigorous study design; appropriate statistical analysis; transparent reporting; and diverse research representation. Furthermore, we strongly recommend the integration of uncertainty measures during model deployment to ensure the utmost fairness and inclusivity. These comprehensive recommendations aim to minimize both bias and noise, thereby improving the performance of future medical decision support systems.

This study presents a comprehensive systematic analysis, investigating hardware accelerators specifically designed for real-time cardiovascular signal processing, focusing mainly on Electrocardiogram (ECG), Photoplethysmogram (PPG), and blood pressure monitoring systems. Cardiovascular Diseases (CVDs) represent the world’s leading cause of morbidity and mortality, creating an urgent demand for efficient and accurate diagnostic technologies. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, we systematically analysed 59 research papers on this topic, published from 2014 to 2024, categorising them into three main categories: signal denoising, feature extraction, and decision support with Machine Learning (ML) or Deep Learning (DL). A comprehensive performance benchmarking across energy efficiency, processing speed, and clinical accuracy demonstrates that hybrid Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)-Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) architectures and specialised Artificial Intelligence (AI) on Edge accelerators represent the most promising solutions for next-generation CVD monitoring systems. The analysis identifies key technological gaps and proposes future research directions focused on developing ultra-low-power, clinically robust, and highly scalable physiological signal processing systems. The findings provide guidance for advancing hardware-accelerated cardiovascular diagnostics toward practical clinical deployment.

This study presents a comprehensive systematic review focusing on the applications of deep learning techniques in lung cancer radiomics. Through a rigorous screening process of 589 scientific publications following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, we selected 153 papers for an in-depth analysis. These papers were categorized based on imaging modality, deep learning model type, and practical applications in lung cancer, such as detection and survival prediction. We specifically emphasized deep learning models and examined their strengths and limitations for each application and imaging modality. Furthermore, we identified potential limitations within the field and proposed future research directions.This study serves as a pioneering resource, being the first comprehensive and systematic review of deep learning techniques, specifically in the context of lung cancer-related applications. Our primary objective was to provide a reference for future research, encouraging the advancement of deep learning techniques in the diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer. By suggesting the most effective deep learning tools for specific application areas, we offer a benchmark for future studies.In summary, this study consolidates and expands existing knowledge on deep learning and radiomics applications in lung cancer. It provides a foundation for further research and serves as a guide for developing and evaluating deep learning models in lung cancer-related applications.

Background and objectivesOptical coherence tomography (OCT) has ushered in a transformative era in the domain of ophthalmology, offering non-invasive imaging with high resolution for ocular disease detection. OCT, which is frequently used in diagnosing fundamental ocular pathologies, such as glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration (AMD), plays an important role in the widespread adoption of this technology. Apart from glaucoma and AMD, we will also investigate pertinent pathologies, such as epiretinal membrane (ERM), macular hole (MH), macular dystrophy (MD), vitreomacular traction (VMT), diabetic maculopathy (DMP), cystoid macular edema (CME), central serous chorioretinopathy (CSC), diabetic macular edema (DME), diabetic retinopathy (DR), drusen, glaucomatous optic neuropathy (GON), neovascular AMD (nAMD), myopia macular degeneration (MMD) and choroidal neovascularization (CNV) diseases. This comprehensive review examines the role that OCT-derived images play in detecting, characterizing, and monitoring eye diseases.MethodThe 2020 PRISMA guideline was used to structure a systematic review of research on various eye conditions using machine learning (ML) or deep learning (DL) techniques. A thorough search across IEEE, PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus databases yielded 1787 publications, of which 1136 remained after removing duplicates. Subsequent exclusion of conference papers, review papers, and non-open-access articles reduced the selection to 511 articles. Further scrutiny led to the exclusion of 435 more articles due to lower-quality indexing or irrelevance, resulting in 76 journal articles for the review.ResultsDuring our investigation, we found that a major challenge for ML-based decision support is the abundance of features and the determination of their significance. In contrast, DL-based decision support is characterized by a plug-and-play nature rather than relying on a trial-and-error approach. Furthermore, we observed that pre-trained networks are practical and especially useful when working on complex images such as OCT. Consequently, pre-trained deep networks were frequently utilized for classification tasks. Currently, medical decision support aims to reduce the workload of ophthalmologists and retina specialists during routine tasks. In the future, it might be possible to create continuous learning systems that can predict ocular pathologies by identifying subtle changes in OCT images.

Air pollution poses a significant global health hazard. Effective monitoring and predicting air pollutant concentrations are crucial for managing associated health risks. Recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL), offer the potential for more precise air pollution monitoring and forecasting models. This comprehensive review, conducted according to PRISMA guidelines, analyzed 65 high-quality Q1 journal articles to uncover current trends, challenges, and future AI applications in this field. The review revealed a significant increase in research papers utilizing ML and DL approaches from 2021 onwards. ML techniques currently dominate, with Random Forest being the most frequent method, achieving up to 98.2% accuracy. DL techniques show promise in capturing complex spatiotemporal relationships in air quality data. The study highlighted the importance of integrating diverse data sources to improve model accuracy. Future research should focus on addressing challenges in model interpretability and uncertainty quantification.

Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) have emerged as a powerful tool in artificial intelligence, particularly for unsupervised learning. This systematic review analyzes GAN applications in healthcare, focusing on image and signal-based studies across various clinical domains. Following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, we reviewed 72 relevant journal articles. Our findings reveal that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and electrocardiogram (ECG) signal acquisition techniques were most utilized, with brain studies (22%), cardiology (18%), cancer (15%), ophthalmology (12%), and lung studies (10%) being the most researched areas. We discuss key GAN architectures, including cGAN (31%) and CycleGAN (18%), along with datasets, evaluation metrics, and performance outcomes. The review highlights promising data augmentation, anonymization, and multi-task learning results. We identify current limitations, such as the lack of standardized metrics and direct comparisons, and propose future directions, including the development of no-reference metrics, immersive simulation scenarios, and enhanced interpretability.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) affects more than 30 million individuals worldwide, making it the most prevalent cardiac arrhythmia on a global scale. This systematic review summarizes recent advancements in applying artificial intelligence (AI) techniques for AF detection, prediction, and guiding treatment selection and risk stratification. In adherence with the PRISMA guidelines (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses), a total of 171 pertinent studies conducted between 2013 and 2023 were examined. Studies applying machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) to electrocardiogram (ECG), photoplethysmography (PPG), wearable data, and other sources were evaluated. For AF detection, most works employed DL (48 studies) and ML (28 studies) on ECG data. DL methods directly analyzed ECG waveforms and outperformed approaches relying on hand-crafted features. For prediction and risk stratification, 22 studies used ML while 7 leveraged DL on ECG. An emerging trend showed the growing potential of PPG for AF screening. Overall, AI demonstrated promising capabilities across various AF-related tasks. However, real-world implementation faces challenges including a lack of interpretability, the need for multimodal data integration, prospective performance validation, and regulatory compliance. Future research directions involve quantifying model uncertainty, enhancing transparency, and conducting population-based clinical trials to facilitate translation into practice. This article is categorized under: Application Areas > Health Care Application Areas > Science and Technology Technologies > Artificial Intelligence

Celiac Disease (CD) is a common ailment that affects approximately 1% of the world population. Automated CD detection can help experts during the diagnosis of this condition at an early stage and bring significant benefits to both patients and healthcare providers. For this purpose, scientists have created automatic and semi-automatic CD diagnostic support systems. In this study, we performed information extraction methods that were found useful for efforts to differentiate CD versus non-CD. To focus the review process, only methods for endoscopy, video capsule endoscopy (VCE) and biopsy image analyses were considered. As described herein, we have learned that statistical and non-linear methods are most important for information extraction. These information extraction tools might benefit clinical workflows by reducing intra- and inter-observer variability. However, bias, introduced by resolving design choices during the creation of diagnostic support systems, may limit the general validity of the performance results, impacting the transferability of study outcomes. Therefore, having am overview of information extraction tools. Together with their general and specific limitations, might be assistive in improving the information extraction process. We hope our review results will provide a foundation for the design of next-generation statistical and nonlinear methods that can be used in CD detection systems. We have also compared various review articles and discussed recommendations to improve CD diagnosis. From this review, it is evident that CD diagnosis is slowly moving away from conventional techniques towards advanced deep learning techniques.

Dental caries is the most frequent dental health issue in the general population. Dental caries can result in extreme pain or infections, lowering people's quality of life. Applying machine learning models to automatically identify dental caries can lead to earlier treatment. However, physicians frequently find the model results unsatisfactory due to a lack of explainability. Our study attempts to address this issue with an explainable deep learning model for detecting dental caries. We tested three prominent pre-trained models, EfficientNet-B0, DenseNet-121, and ResNet-50, to determine which is best for the caries detection task. These models take panoramic images as the input, producing a caries-non-caries classification result and a heat map, which visualizes areas of interest on the tooth. The model performance was evaluated using whole panoramic images of 562 subjects. All three models produced remarkably similar results. However, the ResNet-50 model exhibited a slightly better performance when compared to EfficientNet-B0 and DenseNet-121. This model obtained an accuracy of 92.00%, a sensitivity of 87.33%, and an F1-score of 91.61%. Visual inspection showed us that the heat maps were also located in the areas with caries. The proposed explainable deep learning model diagnosed dental caries with high accuracy and reliability. The heat maps help to explain the classification results by indicating a region of suspected caries on the teeth. Dentists could use these heat maps to validate the classification results and reduce misclassification.

Background and objective: Celiac Disease (CD) is characterized by gluten intolerance in genetically predisposed individuals. High disease prevalence, absence of a cure, and low diagnosis rates make this disease a public health problem. The diagnosis of CD predominantly relies on recognizing characteristic mucosal alterations of the small intestine, such as villous atrophy, crypt hyperplasia, and intraepithelial lymphocytosis. However, these changes are not entirely specific to CD and overlap with Non-Celiac Duodenitis (NCD) due to various etiologies. We investigated whether Artificial Intelligence (AI) models could assist in distinguishing normal, CD, and NCD (and unaffected individuals) based on the characteristics of small intestinal lamina propria (LP).Methods: Our method was developed using a dataset comprising high magnification biopsy images of the duodenal LP compartment of CD patients with different clinical stages of CD, those with NCD, and individuals lacking an intestinal inflammatory disorder (controls). A pre-processing step was used to standardize and enhance the acquired images.Results: For the normal controls versus CD use case, a Support Vector Machine (SVM) achieved an Accuracy (ACC) of 98.53%. For a second use case, we investigated the ability of the classification algorithm to differentiate between normal controls and NCD. In this use case, the SVM algorithm with linear kernel outperformed all the tested classifiers by achieving 98.55% ACC.Conclusions: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that documents automated differentiation between normal, NCD, and CD biopsy images. These findings are a stepping stone toward automated biopsy image analysis that can significantly benefit patients and healthcare providers.(c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )

Positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) is increasingly used in oncology, neurology, cardiology, and emerging medical fields. The success stems from the cohesive information that hybrid PET/CT imaging offers, surpassing the capabilities of individual modalities when used in isolation for different malignancies. However, manual image interpretation requires extensive disease-specific knowledge, and it is a time-consuming aspect of physicians' daily routines. Deep learning algorithms, akin to a practitioner during training, extract knowledge from images to facilitate the diagnosis process by detecting symptoms and enhancing images. This acquired knowledge aids in supporting the diagnosis process through symptom detection and image enhancement. The available review papers on PET/CT imaging have a drawback as they either included additional modalities or examined various types of AI applications. However, there has been a lack of comprehensive investigation specifically focused on the highly specific use of AI, and deep learning, on PET/CT images. This review aims to fill that gap by investigating the characteristics of approaches used in papers that employed deep learning for PET/CT imaging. Within the review, we identified 99 studies published between 2017 and 2022 that applied deep learning to PET/CT images. We also identified the best pre-processing algorithms and the most effective deep learning models reported for PET/CT while highlighting the current limitations. Our review underscores the potential of deep learning (DL) in PET/CT imaging, with successful applications in lesion detection, tumor segmentation, and disease classification in both sinogram and image spaces. Common and specific pre-processing techniques are also discussed. DL algorithms excel at extracting meaningful features, and enhancing accuracy and efficiency in diagnosis. However, limitations arise from the scarcity of annotated datasets and challenges in explainability and uncertainty. Recent DL models, such as attention-based models, generative models, multi-modal models, graph convolutional networks, and transformers, are promising for improving PET/CT studies. Additionally, radiomics has garnered attention for tumor classification and predicting patient outcomes. Ongoing research is crucial to explore new applications and improve the accuracy of DL models in this rapidly evolving field.

Sleep stage scoring is an important aspect of sleep medicine and research. The literature for automated sleep stage scoring contains a wide range of methods. A major goal of this study is to give an overview on how these methods are combined such that the automated sleep stage scoring functionality emerges. We discuss and advise on signal processing techniques that are used for automated sleep stage scoring. This discussion starts with a review of benchmark databases which contain measurement data and corresponding expert sleep stage scoring results. The data processing techniques can be grouped into one of four main categories: pre-processing, feature engineering, feature selection, and classification. After the individual signal processing techniques are introduced, we move on to review scientific work on automated sleep stage scoring. At the heart of automated sleep stage scoring are the classification algorithms which provide decision support for human experts. The classification is realized by training and testing artificial intelligence algorithms. During the review, we have learned that properties such as safety, reliability, and functionality of the decision support relate to the choice of artificial intelligence algorithm. Especially choosing between traditional machine learning and deep learning (DL) algorithms will shape both validity and transferability of test results.

Speech emotion recognition is an important research topic that can help to maintain and improve public health and contribute towards the ongoing progress of healthcare technology. There have been several advancements in the field of speech emotion recognition systems including the use of deep learning models and new acoustic and temporal features. This paper proposes a self-attention-based deep learning model that was created by combining a two-dimensional Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and a long short-term memory (LSTM) network. This research builds on the existing literature to identify the best-performing features for this task with extensive experiments on different combinations of spectral and rhythmic information. Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCCs) emerged as the best performing features for this task. The experiments were performed on a customised dataset that was developed as a combination of RAVDESS, SAVEE, and TESS datasets. Eight states of emotions (happy, sad, angry, surprise, disgust, calm, fearful, and neutral) were detected. The proposed attention-based deep learning model achieved an average test accuracy rate of 90%, which is a substantial improvement over established models. Hence, this emotion detection model has the potential to improve automated mental health monitoring.

Mental performance classification is a critical issue for brain-computer interfaces. Accurate and reliable classification of good or bad mental performance gives important clues for the preliminary diagnosis of some diseases and mental stress. In this work, we put forward an objective artificial intelligence model to quantify the clarity of thought during mental arithmetic tasks. The proposed model consists of: (i) multilevel feature extraction based on statistical and texture analysis methods, (ii) feature ranking and selection with a Chi2 method, (iii) classification, and (iv) weightless majority voting classifier. The novelty of the presented model comes from multilevel fused feature generation. The presented model was developed using 20 channel electroencephalography data from 36 subjects. The signals were captured while the subjects were performing mental arithmetic tasks. The individual datasets were labeled as either good or bad, based on the task results. We have obtained an accuracy of 96.77% using O2 channel with a k-nearest neighbor classifier and reached 100.0% accuracy with the majority voting classifier. Our results indicate that it is possible to determine mental performance with artificial intelligence. That might be a steppingstone to establish objective measures for the clarity of thought during a wide range of mental tasks.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE:Obstructive airway diseases, including asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), are two of the most common chronic respiratory health problems. Both of these conditions require health professional expertise in making a diagnosis. Hence, this process is time intensive for healthcare providers and the diagnostic quality is subject to intra- and inter- operator variability. In this study we investigate the role of automated detection of obstructive airway diseases to reduce cost and improve diagnostic quality.METHODS:We investigated the existing body of evidence and applied Preferred Reporting Items for Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines to search records in IEEE, Google scholar, and PubMed databases. We identified 65 papers that were published from 2013 to 2022 and these papers cover 67 different studies. The review process was structured according to the medical data that was used for disease detection. We identified six main categories, namely air flow, genetic, imaging, signals, and miscellaneous. For each of these categories, we report both disease detection methods and their performance.RESULTS:We found that medical imaging was used in 14 of the reviewed studies as data for automated obstructive airway disease detection. Genetics and physiological signals were used in 13 studies. Medical records and air flow were used in 9 and 7 studies, respectively. Most papers were published in 2020 and we found three times more work on Machine Learning (ML) when compared to Deep Learning (DL). Statistical analysis shows that DL techniques achieve higher Accuracy (ACC) when compared to ML. Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) is the most common DL classifier and Support Vector Machine (SVM) is the most widely used ML classifier. During our review, we discovered only two publicly available asthma and COPD datasets. Most studies used private clinical datasets, so data size and data composition are inconsistent.CONCLUSIONS:Our review results indicate that Artificial Intelligence (AI) can improve both decision quality and efficiency of health professionals during COPD and asthma diagnosis. However, we found several limitations in this review, such as a lack of dataset consistency, a limited dataset and remote monitoring was not sufficiently explored. We appeal to society to accept and trust computer aided airflow obstructive diseases diagnosis and we encourage health professionals to work closely with AI scientists to promote automated detection in clinical practice and hospital settings.

EDITORIAL article Front. Hum. Neurosci., 05 October 2023Sec. Brain Imaging and Stimulation Volume 17 - 2023 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2023.1287959