Eyes – Windows to the Heart

The title seems to bemuse on the outset, but that’s exactly what came to my mind when I happened to read about Google’s new AI algorithm that would predict heart diseases and complications by looking (scanning) at your eyes. It’s amazing to see how machine learning implementations open up new possibilities and seemingly much capable things which we often rendered improbable in the past. In the coming years, I believe they’d partner with healthcare firms to work on even larger data sets and come up with specific pattern identifications and customized algorithms and deep learning applications that would further open up non-invasive diagnosis methods. Definitely, this is the future.

The Verge‘s James Vincent writes:

“Although the idea of looking at your eyes to judge the health of your heart sounds unusual, it draws from a body of established research. The rear interior wall of the eye (the fundus) is chock-full of blood vessels that reflect the body’s overall health. By studying their appearance with camera and microscope, doctors can infer things like an individual’s blood pressure, age, and whether or not they smoke, which are all important predictors of cardiovascular health.”

Brandon Specktor reports for Live Science.

Whether you’re getting your eyes scanned by a trained ophthalmologist or Google AI, the biggest clues to your overall health may lie in your blood vessels.

Blood vessels can provide a valuable snapshot of your heart health, revealing clots, constrictions and other abnormalities associated with various cardiovascular diseases and conditions. But because most blood vessels in your body are hidden beneath your skin and other tissues, it can be hard for doctors to access them without potentially expensive or invasive procedures.

The large vessels on the back of your retina — the light-sensitive layer of tissues at the back of your eyes — are an exception. Retinal veins and arteries are directly visible through your pupils, meaning a simple, noninvasive eye scan can reveal whether your retinal blood vessels are constricting from hypertension, clotted with cholesterol or afflicted with various other heart-health risk factors. Doctors look at retinal scans primarily to diagnose glaucoma and diabetes-related eye disease. Increasingly, however, researchers have been using eye scans to screen for high blood pressure and all of the cardiovascular ailments that go along with it.

Absolutely exhilarating!. I am very eccentrically inquisitive of how far they can explore the wide sea of engineering, preferably in finite element analysis or structural engineering. I already came across several firms that have software products with AI built in automating a lot of calculations for structural components used in building design and infrastructure projects based on international codes of design practice.