Even the mental health field can’t stay out of the AI hype. Our work is very human driven, but it turns out we have cool AI advancements too! From identifying client difficulties to even AI doing therapy for those reluctant to see a therapist. But AI and mental health efforts now appear to help us uncover how genetics contribute to mental health disorders.
Researchers at Stanford University recently found a way to program AI to identify complex genetic variations that influence the occurrence of certain mental health disorders.
The human gene sequence (the “human genome”) consists of 3 billion pairs of nitrogen-composed chemical compounds. 3 billion!! Current methods for reading this code to understand that sequence are pretty amazing and advanced. They can identify many key differences in human traits (think what you get from 23andMe readings).
These methods still are only able to understand relatively simple variations in the sequences of genes. However, researchers at Stanford were able to program AI to notice more complex variations. They then examined the brains of individuals with bipolar disorders and schizophrenia after they had passed away.
The researchers found complex variations for these participants in up to 100,000 gene pairs. These particular variations appear to affect how the brain instructs itself to develop over time and to process information about the world. This is important because it demonstrates differences in how DNA is arranged in bipolar disorders and schizophrenia compared to no conditions.
But how does this AI and mental health work help with individual clients? Identifying these genetic differences can help us better understand one key source of these disorders. Researchers have much more to learn about gene variations and how to influence them. But this continued understanding should eventually help develop more treatment options.
Multiple advancements in gene identification technology is one AI method that helps us understand aspects of how mental health disorders develop. This will likely someday lead to treatments for some pretty impactful difficulties. This and other advancements makes it look like mental health really does get to be part of cool AI world.
