Making paralysis a thing of the past!
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590006424001765
We are pleased to share our last paper “Targeted therapy and deep learning insights into microglia modulation for spinal cord injury”, just published on Materials Today Bio.
Microglia, the central nervous system’s immune sentinels, are known to be promising therapeutic targets in both SCI and neurodegenerative diseases. Because of the variability in microglial morphology and the lack of standardized techniques, it is still difficult to precisely measure their activation in preclinical models: this issue is crucial in SCI, where the intricacy of the glia response following traumatic events necessitates the use of a sophisticated method to automatically discern between various microglial cell activation states that vary over time and space as the secondary injury progresses. We have addressed this issue by proposing a deep learning-based technique for quantifying microglial activation following treatment in a preclinical SCI model. We used a convolutional neural network to segment and classify microglia based on morphological characteristics, gaining high accuracy and efficiency that proved the reliability and robustness of this computational technique.
Not only we had developed a tool to further consolidate our clinical evidences, but this also represents our humble and small tile, contributing to the intriguing and fascinating new puzzle designed at the border between life sciences and AI.