About this Research Topic
A variety of statistical methods have been employed in for modeling trajectory or risk of neurodegenerative diseases, such as change-point model, time-varying effect model (TVEM), group-based trajectory model, Cox proportional hazard model, logistic regression, and machine learning methods such as support vector machine, survival forests, conditional survival and supervised learning using time windows. Recently, with rapid advancement in artificial intelligence, deep learning has also been used. Meanwhile, different risk factors, biomarkers, environmental and life style factors, and neuropsychological features have been utilized used for prediction, including:
- demographic information such as age, gender, education and ethnicity, genetic data such as APOE genotypes,
- cognitive performance such as global cognition and cognitive domains,
- vascular risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes and heart disease,
- imaging data such as hippocampal volume, and precuneus and medial temporal cortical thickness,
- life style factors such as cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption and sleeping,
- and environmental factors such as pesticide exposure.
While a few of these approaches were reported to have good predictive ability, some were built with limited sample size, some used information less commonly collected, while others need further validation. More studies leveraging recent advances in statistics and computer science that have better performance are greatly needed, especially those that can accurately predict neurodegenerative disorders years before their onset.
In this Research Topic, we welcome scientists from various fields of research to report their findings in employing different approaches, such as novel statistical modelling, machine learning and deep learning, or using different risk factors or biomarkers, in an attempt to predict more accurately the trajectories, or the risk or time of onset of common age-related neurodegenerative disorders such as MCI, and dementia/AD dementia.
Keywords: Prediction, Neurodegenerative Diseases, Statistical Modelling, Machine Learning, Risk
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