Bringing deep learning' to the clinic: scientists overcome key barrier to widespread adoption By providing a new level of clarity into how deep learning systems reach their medical diagnoses, scientists hope this AI approach will fuel a new era of preventative medicine.
March 01, 2021
LA JOLLA, CA A team led by scientists at Scripps Research has demonstrated a method for opening the black box of a powerful artificial intelligence technique called deep learning, which holds vast potential for identifying disease earlier than is currently possible. The new method could help unleash deep learning for medical applications such as predicting heart attacks and diagnosing cancers.
The framework we've created enables an in-depth exploration of the deep learning decision-making process, making it more transparent and useful for clinicians, says the studys senior author Giorgio Quer, PhD, senior staff scientist at Scripps Research and director of artificial intelligence at the Scripps Research Translational Institute.
Deep learning networks are software-based, brain-like systems neural networks that can process a large amount of data to recognize patterns, make predictions or otherwise make brain-like decisions. They are considered black boxes because the ways in which they turn their inputs into outputs are often unknown they don't reveal interpretable relationships. That makes deep learning hard to use in real-world settings where, for example, a doctor might need to know why a deep learning system reached an important conclusion such as a disease diagnosis.
In the study, published in the IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, the Scripps Research scientists developed a framework for explaining how deep learning works, and demonstrated this through a deep learning system's identification of a common heart condition called atrial fibrillation.
A case study in heart disease
Atrial fibrillation, often called AFib, is a condition in which the heart sometimes slips into a rapid and dysfunctional rhythm, causing lightheadedness and other symptoms. Four out of every 10 adults over age 55 will develop AFib in their lifetime. Most critically, AFib promotes the formation of blood clots in the heart, which can break off and cause strokes; people with this condition have five times the normal risk of stroke.
Yet, for many patients AFib flares up only occasionally, making it hard to detect in routine medical checkups that gather only a brief snapshot of a patient's heartbeat. Quer and colleagues in recent years have shown how wearable medical devices can gather heart-rhythm data for extended periods, and that deep learning can then process the vast datasets to detect AFib (read the 2019 study).
This proposed method would offer improved diagnostic accuracy over traditional models and could save lives by spotting disease earlier. But the opacity of deep learning has remained a hurdle to clinical adoption of this approach.
Evoking transparency
In the new study, Quer and colleagues created a way to analyze how deep learning makes its decisions in a medical diagnostic context. Then, they applied this framework to the deep learning system they developed for AFib. Their method included subtracting or otherwise varying the input data to see how those changes altered the deep learning network's decision. The result was a comprehensive picture of how deep learning works in this instance, showing how its recognition of AFib depends on key clinical variables.
Interestingly, we found that the ECG features that most heavily contributed to the final deep learning decision are features that cardiologists also routinely look for in diagnosing AFib, says study co-author Steven Steinhubl, MD, a cardiologist and director of Digital Medicine at the Scripps Research Translational Institute.
Quer, Steinhubl and their colleagues hope that the availability of this explanatory framework will encourage cardiologists and hospitals to start using deep learning and wearable technology for better AFib screening and monitoring.
The approach could eventually be applied to other medical conditions that can be identified through data collected with wearable devices. Currently, the Scripps Research team is working on a machine learning method to detect COVID-19 from wearable sensor data, aiming to improve upon the accuracy they reported in their recent paper in Nature Medicine. Here, it will be necessary to explain the machine learning results and highlight the most important features used to identify people with COVID-19 infection.
With this new explanatory approach, we hope to better understand the deep learning network and make it more useful to clinicians, Quer says.
The study was a collaboration between Scripps Research and the University of California, San Diego. A Comprehensive Explanation Framework for Biomedical Time Series Classification was co-authored by Praharsh Ivaturi, Matteo Gadaleta, Amitabh Pandey, Michael Pazzani, Steven Steinhubl and Giorgio Quer.
Funding was provided by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Science Foundation and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.
Heart Disease Quer, Giorgio
North America Stories
12/06/2026
YES Network and The Gotham Sports App will air seven Athletes Unlimited Softball...
12/06/2026
The United Football League will host its FAST Innovation Suite at the 2026 United Bowl presented by Credit One Bank on Saturday, June 13 at 3:00 p.m. ET at Audi...
12/06/2026
PTZOptics and LayerJot will present live demonstrations at InfoComm 2026 showing how natural-language AI prompting, robotic camera control, and on-device comput...
12/06/2026
MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will exhibit at InfoComm 2026, featuring...
12/06/2026
Ateme has announced that Eurovision Services is using Ateme's software-based frame-rate conversion technology for international live event workflows. The de...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin and Simplestream have announced a partnership with Xperi to simplify the launch of OTT streaming services on TiVo OS smart TVs and devices. The collabo...
12/06/2026
Net Insight has announced that a multinational technology company is deploying a...
12/06/2026
MLB Players Inc., the business arm of the MLB Players Association, has announced a partnership with Athletes First to develop and sell brand partnerships across...
12/06/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D) and VuWall have announced the CommandKeyboard-Advanc...
12/06/2026
Comcast Smart Solutions announces a new smart technology deployment with Major L...
12/06/2026
Elevation Worship completed the initial leg of its Elevation Nights 2026 tour ...
12/06/2026
AJA Video Systems has announced KONA IP25 support for Colorfront Transkoder and ...
12/06/2026
Audinate Group Limited (ASX: AD8) will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth C7321, Ce...
12/06/2026
Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould has announced the appointment of Scott Adametz as Chief Technology Officer. The Pac-12 describes the hire as the first CTO appo...
12/06/2026
Grass Valley has announced AMPP Edge Live, a production system combining Grass Valley hardware, NVIDIA Blackwell GPU acceleration, and AMPP OS in a single platf...
12/06/2026
At one time a trailblazer with the launch of the Longhorn Network, the Universit...
12/06/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
12/06/2026
Chyron has announced PAINT 10.4, an update to its illustrated replay and sports ...
12/06/2026
SVP, Production Mark Gross: With the new schedule, with not having every Sunday night, it's given us an opportunity to take a step back and reimagine what ...
12/06/2026
For Televisa Technical Engineering Manager Roberto N nez Ibarra and the small team of 12 technicians and two production personnel at the IBC things are already ...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AJA Announces KONA IP25 Integration with Colorfront Software
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Collaboration enables uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110 I/O ...
12/06/2026
URSA Cine 12K LF Used to Create Visuals for STUTS' K-Arena Concert
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Organic visuals projected on a giant scre...
12/06/2026
MTI FILM Acquires Mango New Edit, Expanding its Global Post-Production Services ...
12/06/2026
AI Point Tracking Speeds Up Complex VFX Tracks in Mocha Pro
Jessie Electa Petrov June 12, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release adds automatic point trac...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, has partnered with Simplestream, a provider of OTT and broadcast solutions, and technology provider Xperi, to...
12/06/2026
Leostream Corporation, creator of the world-leading Leostream Remote Desktop Access Platform, today announced Jigsaw24, a leading B2B IT solutions provider wit...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils First-Look Images from Villaflor, Santiago Mitre's New Film
Entertainment
12 June 2026
GlobalArgentina
Link copied to ...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Cross the Boundaries of the Real World into the Spirit Realm i...
12/06/2026
A fentanyl countermeasure that adapts to combat future black-market drugs Scripps Research scientists developed a vaccine that teaches the immune system to rapi...
11/06/2026
The immense size of the tourney and its Atlantic-spanning operation also disting...
11/06/2026
Nielsen has released a new soccer fandom consumer research report, The Fans Behind The Game: FIFA World Cup 2026 Edition, examining the soccer audience in the...
11/06/2026
Telemundo will launch its FIFA World Cup 2026 coverage on Thursday, June 11 with...
11/06/2026
FuboTV Inc. has announced a distribution agreement with NBCUniversal. Fubo customers can now stream Telemundo and Universo, with NBC Sports Network (NBCSN), NBC...
11/06/2026
DAZN has announced its in-app features for FIFA World Cup 2026 coverage in Spain...
11/06/2026
Roblox has released the 2026 Roblox Digital Expression Report: Wave 4 - Sports D...
11/06/2026
FIFA has unveiled DNA, the Official FIFA World Cup 2026 Anthem, performed by A...
11/06/2026
ESPN will provide English- and Spanish-language news and information coverage of FIFA World Cup 2026 across its U.S. media platforms from June 11 through July 1...
11/06/2026
The latest product of the outstanding RIT Sports Network program, this recent grad from Long Island is carving out a promising path in broadcast engineering
In...
11/06/2026
DAZN has announced a multi-year agreement to make DSPORTS channels available to ...
11/06/2026
Laura Dern at the 1986 Sundance Institute Directors Lab (Photo by Eric Edwards)
By Lucy Spicer
It takes a village to bring together the Sundance Institute lab...
11/06/2026
MTI FILM acquires Mango/New Edit Posted by MTI Film on June 10, 2026
LOS ANGELES, CA - June 2026 - MTI FILM, the multiple Emmy Award winning Hollywood post-p...
11/06/2026
Study underscores the need for authoritative content intelligence to build trust...
Bringing deep learning' to the clinic: scientists overcome key barrier to widespread adoption By providing a new level of clarity into how deep learning systems reach their medical diagnoses, scientists hope this AI approach will fuel a new era of preventative medicine.
