# Neurofind: using deep learning to make individualised inferences in brain-based disorders

## TL;DR

Neurofind is a web-based tool that uses MRI scans to detect brain abnormalities in disorders like Alzheimer's and schizophrenia, offering insights into brain morphology and aging.

## Contribution

Neurofind introduces an accessible, user-friendly platform for applying normative models to brain imaging data, enabling individualized inferences in brain-based disorders.

## Key findings

- Alzheimer’s disease patients showed extreme outlier scores in temporal-limbic structures and ventricles with high homogeneity in deviations.
- Schizophrenia patients had fewer extreme outliers, primarily in the hippocampus and pallidum, with more heterogeneous deviations.
- Both Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia groups exhibited signs of accelerated brain aging.

## Abstract

Within precision psychiatry, there is a growing interest in normative models given their ability to parse heterogeneity. While they are intuitive and informative, the technical expertise and resources required to develop normative models may not be accessible to most researchers. Here we present Neurofind, a new freely available tool that bridges this gap by wrapping sound and previously tested methods on data harmonisation and advanced normative models into a web-based platform that requires minimal input from the user. We explain how Neurofind was developed, how to use the Neurofind website in four simple steps (www.neurofind.ai), and provide exemplar applications. Neurofind takes as input structural MRI images and outputs two main metrics derived from independent normative models: (1) Outlier Index Score, a deviation score from the normative brain morphology, and (2) Brain Age, the predicted age based on an individual’s brain morphometry. The tool was trained on 3362 images of healthy controls aged 20–80 from publicly available datasets. The volume of 101 cortical and subcortical regions was extracted and modelled with an adversarial autoencoder for the Outlier index model and a support vector regression for the Brain age model. To illustrate potential applications, we applied Neurofind to 364 images from three independent datasets of patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia. In Alzheimer’s disease, 55.2% of patients had very extreme Outlier Index Scores, mostly driven by larger deviations in temporal-limbic structures and ventricles. Patients were also homogeneous in how they deviated from the norm. Conversely, only 30.1% of schizophrenia patients were extreme outliers, due to deviations in the hippocampus and pallidum, and patients tended to be more heterogeneous than controls. Both groups showed signs of accelerated brain ageing.