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Fri, 22 May 2026

Fri, 22 May 2026 From decades to years - AI could speed search for brain drugs hiding in plain sight

Researchers hope the work will help identify affordable, effective drugs to treat conditions like MND.

* Scientists are using AI to accelerate research into neurological conditions such as motor neurone disease (MND) and Parkinson's.
* Researchers at the UK Dementia Research Institute analyze patient data, including voice recordings and eye scans, to identify existing drugs that could be repurposed for treatment.
* By using algorithms to detect patterns of disease and predict suitable medicines, effective treatments could be found in "years rather than decades".
* A trial participant, Steven Barrett, who has MND, hopes the research will bring a cure or new treatments to those affected by neurological conditions.
* The Institute is building a database of people with various conditions, including Parkinson's and dementia, and using AI to analyze data from iris scans, voice recordings, and blood samples.
* Existing drugs are being tested on lab-grown brain cells, and machine learning algorithms have been trained to identify potential treatments.
* Institute chief executive Prof Siddarthan Chandran believes that one of the 1,500 approved drugs could be effective in treating neurological conditions if repurposed.
* The research aims to make affordable, effective treatments available for neurological conditions sooner than traditional methods allow.