The National Yang Ming Chiao Tong University (NYCU) and the Taipei Veterans General Hospital hailed a new milestone for disease diagnosis in the medical industry with a brain imaging system they jointly developed that could isolate levels of cerebral regression suffered by patients with mental diseases at different stages of their lives.
The system, named Brain Probe, won this year’s Edison Awards’ Gold award in the Advancements in Neurological Treatments subcategory.
NYCU’s School of Medicine dean Albert Yang (楊智傑) said that neuropsychiatric diagnoses have long relied on doctor-patient interaction and reference patients’ known family medical history.
Photo courtesy of the National Yang Ming Chiao Tong University
The system allows doctors to precisely quantify the regression rates that different cerebral regions experience due to aging or as a cause of a disorder, he said on Friday.
While initially developed with identifying schizophrenia in mind, the platform could potentially be extended to diagnose major neuropsychiatric diseases.
The team based its solution on long-term observation data of brain aging and disease-related brain regression, and determined the regression model for the gray and white matter areas in 138 brain regions, Yang said.
The model would allow doctors to predict regression trends based on the patient’s age or the stage of their illness, isolate critically abnormal regions and prescribe more targeted treatments, he said.
This development is a far cry from previous technology, which was unable to provide doctors with a distinct causal relation between imagery and symptoms, he said.
The system is already being used for research and clinical assessments of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder, Yang said.
Research data generated by the system show that schizophrenic patients experience a significant shrinkage of the general brain size in the 22 years after they are first diagnosed with schizophrenia, while exhibiting greater cortical thickness in the early stages, he said.
Schizophrenic patients have also been shown to see a significant regression in gray matter in the temporal and frontal lobes, as well as the insula, he said.
The system’s data also show that bipolar and depressive patients exhibit anomalies in the anterior cingulate cortex, he said.
Such information is beneficial to doctors, who would be able to more precisely target areas for repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation or deep brain stimulation therapies, Yang said.
The Sports Administration yesterday demanded an apology from the national table tennis association for barring 17-year-old Yeh Yi-tian (葉伊恬) from competing in the upcoming World Table Tennis (WTT) United States Smash tournament in Las Vegas this July. The sports agency said in a statement that the Chinese Taipei Table Tennis Association (CTTTA) must explain to the public why it withdrew Yeh from the WTT tournament in Las Vegas. The sports agency said it contacted the association to express its disapproval of the decision-making process after receiving a complaint from Yeh’s coach, Chuang
Taipei has once again made it to the top 100 in Oxford Economics’ Global Cities Index 2025 report, moving up five places from last year to 60. The annual index, which was published last month, evaluated 1,000 of the most populated metropolises based on five indices — economics, human capital, quality of life, environment and governance. New York maintained its top spot this year, placing first in the economics index thanks to the strength of its vibrant financial industry and economic stability. Taipei ranked 263rd in economics, 44th in human capital, 15th in quality of life, 284th for environment and 75th in governance,
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) tendered his resignation last night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by media. His resignation was immediately accepted by the Control Yuan. In a statement explaining why he had resigned, Lee apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon on May 20. The issue first came to light late last month, when TVBS News reported that Lee had instructed his driver to take the dog to the salon. The news channel broadcast photos that it said were taken by an unnamed whistle-blower, which purportedly showed the