Benchmarks is your weekly dose of news and notes about the Massachusetts General Hospital research community. With over 9,500 investigators, there’s more news than we can cover each week. Here are a few highlights.

In this issue:

• Research in the News
• AI Model Enables Alzheimer’s Disease Detection from Brain MRIs
• Innovator Spotlight Q&A with Sabine Wilhelm, PhD
• Haberer Elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation
• Tweets of the Week
• This Week in Mass General History
• Volunteer Choir Makes Weekly Trips to Mass General to Sings Hymns to Patients
• Mass General Scientist Makes Startling Claims About Doctors and Drug Use

Research in the News

AI Model Enables Alzheimer’s Disease Detection from Brain MRIs

A research team led by Matt Leming, PhD, and Hyungsoon Im, PhD, has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model that can detect Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in MRI images of the brain.

Leming, a research fellow at the Mass General Center for Systems Biology and an investigator at the Massachusetts Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, trained the machine using data from brain MRIs of patients with and without Alzheimer’s disease.

The team then applied the model to 11,000 unique images from 2,350 patients at risk for developing AD and 27,000 images from 8,500 patients who were not at risk for the disease.

The model was able to detect Alzheimer’s disease risk with an accuracy level of 90.2 percent across all five data sets. Read more.

Innovator Spotlight Q&A with Sabine Wilhelm, PhD

Sabine Wilhelm, PhD, Director of the MGH Center for Digital Mental Health and the MGH Scenter for OCD and Related Disorders, was profiled as part of the Mass General Center for Innovation in Digital Healthcare’s Innovator Spotlight series.

Wilhelm and team have developed smartphone cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT) apps for a range of psychiatric disorders that they are testing in collaboration with patients, clinicians, researchers and an industry partner.

“The core components of these apps include goal setting, psychoeducation, mindfulness, cognitive/behavioral skills, and relapse prevention,” Wilhelm explains.

“Given the current shortage of mental health service providers, we were hopeful that we could give more patients access to high-quality evidence-based care through technology-based or technology-enhanced interventions. As our work progressed, we were particularly encouraged by how much patients liked these nontraditional interventions.” Read more.

Haberer Elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation

Congratulations to Jessica Haberer, MD, MS (Center for Global Health) for being elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI), a nonprofit medical honor society composed of more than 3,000 physician-scientists from all medical specialties.

The ASCI is one of the nation’s oldest medical honor societies and is among the few organizations focused on the special role of physician-scientists in research, clinical care and medical education, as well as leadership positions in academic medicine and the life sciences industry.

Tweets of the Week

This Week in Mass General History

Volunteer Choir Makes Weekly Trips to Mass General to Sings Hymns to Patients

March 9, 1879—The Cambridge Chronicle newspaper profiled Miss Julia Watson, who with a small volunteer choir has been accustomed for the last seven or eight years to visit the Massachusetts General Hospital on Sunday afternoons, and spend three or four hours in singing familiar hymns to the patients.

“Thus in the course of these years, thousands of sufferers have been cheered and comforted with the healing power of music, and thousands of hearts now echo the praises of that ‘Mission of Song.'”

Mass General Scientist Makes Startling Claims About Doctors and Drug Use

March 6, 1911—The Washington Times newspaper has a short article recapping a startling claim made by Mass General toxicologist William F. Boos, MD, regarding the rate of drug use among doctors and other health care providers.

During an address to the Watch and Ward Society the previous evening, Boos claimed that “one in every ten physicians used morphine by hypodermic injection” and that he was also aware of one hospital where all the physicians, nurses and orderlies were using opium, the Times reported.

According to Wikipedia, the New England Watch and Ward Society (founded as the New England Society for the Suppression of Vice) was a Boston-based organization involved in the censorship of books and the performing arts from the late 19th century to the middle of the 20th century.

About the Mass General Research Institute
Research at Massachusetts General Hospital is interwoven through more than 30 different departments, centers and institutes. Our research includes fundamental, lab-based science; clinical trials to test new drugs, devices and diagnostic tools; and community and population-based research to improve health outcomes across populations and eliminate disparities in care.
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