With an innovation developed by Natalia Mota, it is possible to reduce the time it takes to diagnose patients
(Photo: Rebeca Figueiredo)
A female neuroscientist and psychiatrist called Natalia Mota has managed to significantly reduce the time it takes to diagnose schizophrenia and other mental disorders in patients. The process, which used to take about two years, can now be carried out in less time thanks to the computer program developed by Natalia to measure the organization of thought through speech. With the technology, the northeastern researcher's goal is to be able to find early signs of the disease and thus prevent damage in the future. How about understanding how the innovation works? Check it out in the article!
The program's diagnosis of mental disorders is more than 90% accurate
According to Natalia Mota, it is well known that one of the signs of schizophrenia is the way the patient structures their speech and thoughts. "It's not something that the psychiatrist notices only in the content, but in the way the person communicates with organization," she said during a live interview on Glamurama's Instagram. Thus, in his project, the aim was to use technology to help the psychiatrist's work of perception and to capture mental suffering in speech more quickly.
After studies, the result was the creation of a computer program capable of diagnosing disorders such as schizophrenia with more than 90% accuracy. "In practice, we take the sequence of words in the speech and represent it as a graph, which is a simple mathematical entity. We transcribe everything the person says, for example about a dream, and represent each of these words as a unit (a little ball), with the sequence given by arrows. This constructs the design of a trajectory," he explained in the interview.
What was perceived through this trajectory, according to her, is that people who have had access to formal education, and have fully developed their empathy and communication skills, put a lot of information into what they say, but contextualize it and create a connected discourse. "Meanwhile, people with schizophrenia speak in a fragmented way and, with the program, the trick is to be able to measure how fragmented this is, identifying early signs and preventing damage", she explained.
Researcher is dedicated to bringing technological advances to mental health assessment
A native of the Northeast of Brazil and a psychiatrist trained at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), the scientist has been dedicating her master's, doctorate - and now post-doctorate - to developing studies in computational psychiatry, a recent area of research in which her group was one of the pioneers. "The idea is to bring technological advances to the application of psychiatry, to assess mental health and aspects that psychiatrists used to use only their sensitivity to diagnose. The computer can perceive our shopping preferences, for example. Why don't we use this wisdom in the service of mental health?", he asked during the live.
With this in mind, and in search of more news for the area that unites computing and psychiatry, she and some colleagues have teamed up to create a startup, based in Portugal. The aim is to continue developing tools that can help identify early signs of mental distress. "Since we can't get funding for research through the usual channels, we thought we'd generate marketable products so that, from this revenue, we could promote funding for new studies," she said.
Natalia Mota defends female empowerment in science and seeks to inspire other scientists
It is worth noting that, thanks to the algorithm developed for the diagnosis of schizophrenia, Natalia was the 1st Brazilian and only South American nominated for the 2019 Nature Research Award, in the Inspiring Science category. The award aims to value female participation in science by nominating women from different countries in two categories: inspiration and innovation. In addition, this year she was voted one of the most powerful women in Brazil according to Forbes Magazine.
And speaking of women in science, Natalia has also been a defender of female empowerment in the scientific environment, which is why she founded Sci-Girls: a group of women scientists who meet to work and discuss the role of women in the field of research. "I've always liked discussing the role of women in this environment.
