Paraconsistent artificial neural networks and Alzheimer disease: a preliminary study

EEG visual analysis has proved useful in aiding AD diagnosis, being indicated in some clinical protocols. However, such analysis is subject to the inherent imprecision of equipment, patient movements, electric registers, and individual variability of physician visual analysis. Objectives To employ the Paraconsistent Artificial Neural Network to ascertain how to determine the degree of certainty of probable dementia diagnosis. Methods Ten EEG records from patients with probable Alzheimer disease and ten controls were obtained during the awake state at rest. An EEG background between 8 Hz and 12 Hz was considered the normal pattern for patients, allowing a variance of 0.5 Hz. Results The PANN was capable of accurately recognizing waves belonging to Alpha band with favorable evidence of 0.30 and contrary evidence of 0.19, while for waves not belonging to the Alpha pattern, an average favorable evidence of 0.19 and contrary evidence of 0.32 was obtained, indicating that PANN was efficient in recognizing Alpha waves in 80% of the cases evaluated in this study. Artificial Neural Networks - ANN - are well suited to tackle problems such as prediction and pattern recognition. The aim of this work was to recognize predetermined EEG patterns by using a new class of ANN, namely the Paraconsistent Artificial Neural Network - PANN, which is capable of handling uncertain, inconsistent and paracomplete information. An architecture is presented to serve as an auxiliary method in diagnosing Alzheimer disease. Conclusions We believe the results show PANN to be a promising tool to handle EEG analysis, bearing in mind two considerations: the growing interest of experts in visual analysis of EEG, and the ability of PANN to deal directly with imprecise, inconsistent, and paracomplete data, thereby providing a valuable quantitative analysis.