Hong Kong project to use AI, genomics for mental health diagnosis, treatment gets $5 million

A new health technology project in Hong Kong has received significant public funding to introduce an AI-based data-driven approach to mental health diagnosis and treatment.

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University-led project received more than HK$37 million ($4.7 million) in funding from a strategic theme grant from the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong.

what is this about

Based on a press statement, the project aims to combine AI and genomic and biomedical technologies to support the diagnosis and personalized medicine of major psychiatric disorders.

First, the research will identify genetic disease biomarkers and brain activity patterns to classify the major mental disorders into distinct categories. Then, it will study the longitudinal effect of stress on diseases and their inheritance for understanding of disease mechanisms. Later, the results of these two activities will be combined to guide the diagnosis and personalized therapy of mental health disorders.

The project will involve 20 investigators and collaborators from eight institutions in Hong Kong, mainland China and the United States.

why it matters

About 13% of Hong Kong’s population has major mental disorders, including major depressive disorder, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Fewer than four out of 10 of them are able to completely control their symptoms after initial treatment.

To improve the diagnosis, study and personalized treatment of mental health disorders, researchers at PolyU are coming up with an integrated solution that shifts from a symptom-based approach to an AI-based, data-driven approach.

big trend

Asia-Pacific has seen various use cases of AI in mental health care diagnosis in recent years. One of them is a deep learning model to predict the risk of Alzheimer’s disease which was recently introduced by a multinational research team. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

The second is a Hong Kong-based deep-learning-based online test Deep Longevity who can also design a personalized program for patients.

Opsys Emotion AI An emotion analysis technique has been developed to diagnose mental health conditions of seniors in Singapore.

On the record

“This is a multidisciplinary project that responds to an urgent need for new technologies to improve mental health care in Hong Kong and beyond. The research team combines expertise from diverse fields such as computer science, biology and medicine to address some of the fundamental challenges in complex disease studies,” said project lead Weixiong Zhang, who is also Chair Professor of Bioinformatics and Integrative Genomics at PolyU.