Simulating stroke treatments using a digital twin

Researchers at Amsterdam UMC explained that the ‘digital twins’ they aim to develop are not animations, but ‘real calculations.’

In a statement, Alfons Hoekstra, professor of Computational Science at the University of Amsterdam, said: “We enter the blood pressure, heart rhythm, information from the brain scan and other medical data of the stroke patient. Then a 'digital twin' is generated, on which we can simulate treatments.”

Researchers cited the example of removing a blood clot in the event of a cerebral infarction. By running simulations, researchers said that doctors could be able to see whether a specific treatment will leave the patient's blood clot intact or disintegrates it.

“We are now finding out what is good for the individual patient. The more measurements we can put into the digital twin, the more precisely we can predict what the best treatment will be," said Hoekstra.

This way of entering data into a computer model is called ‘knowledge-based artificial intelligence’, which uses in-depth biological and medical knowledge of strokes. Researchers said that this tool differs from data-driven artificial intelligence, which purely looks at large amounts of data, and uses the data from many previous patients to make predictions.