Optimal transport- and kernel-based early detection of mild cognitive impairment patients based on magnetic resonance and positron emission tomography images

Background To help clinicians provide timely treatment and delay disease progression, it is crucial to identify dementia patients during the mild cognitive impairment (MCI) stage and stratify these MCI patients into early and late MCI stages before they progress to Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In the process of diagnosing MCI and AD in living patients, brain scans are collected using neuroimaging technologies such as computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), or positron emission tomography (PET). These brain scans measure the volume and molecular activity within the brain resulting in a very promising avenue to diagnose patients early in a minimally invasive manner. Methods We have developed an optimal transport based transfer learning model to discriminate between early and late MCI. Combing this transfer learning model with bootstrap aggregation strategy, we overcome the overfitting problem and improve model stability and prediction accuracy. Results With the transfer learning methods that we have developed, we outperform the current state of the art MCI stage classification frameworks and show that it is crucial to leverage Alzheimer’s disease and normal control subjects to accurately predict early and late stage cognitive impairment. Conclusions Our method is the current state of the art based on benchmark comparisons. This method is a necessary technological stepping stone to widespread clinical usage of MRI-based early detection of AD.