Artificial Intelligence methods applied to Veterinary Neuroscience PRIORITY RESEARCH GRANT 2024

Artificial intelligence and neuropathology Veterinary Pathology is a very comprehensive field. The diagnostic task for a veterinary pathologist is to identify characteristics and patterns of cells and tissues for pathological changes, with the microscope still considered to be the gold standard. Assessment of morphological and molecular changes have important consequences for the following therapeutic decisions. In VP these changes are also the base to use animal health as broad environmental sentinel. The advent of Digital Pathology (DP) tools have been primarily focuses on specific aspects of pre-analytic and analytic sample processing and staining. Several digital techniques, such as whole slide imaging – generating the “virtual microscope”- and Computer-assisted diagnosis have greatly improved standardization and simplification of morphological findings identification and reducing differences between pathologists’ assessments. DP can be considered as a pioneer of applied Artificial Intelligence (AI). Several studies have already demonstrated the potential benefit of application of AI-based techniques to pathology so that the use of AI in pathology has been referred as the third major revolution in pathology after the introduction of immunohistochemistry and molecular pathology. AI enables simple, efficient and robust pattern recognition. The aim of this research topic is to apply AI-based technique to specimens from various mammal species with neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration.

Five publications related to the Research Topic for the candidate interview: 

  1. Signaevsky M et al.: Artificial Intelligence in neuropathology: deep learning-based assessment of tauopathy. Lab. Invest., 99,1019, 2019.
  2. Platt F.M. et al.: Lysosomal storage diseases. Nature Rev Dis Primers, 4,27,2018.
  3. Wildi N. and Sueberlich T.: Neurotropic Astroviruses in Animals. Viruses, 13,1201,2021.
  4. Waltzek TB et al: Marine mammals zoonoses: a review of disease manifestation. Zoonoses and public health, 59, 521-535, 2012
  5. Chen Z-Y, Zhang Y.: Animal models of Alzheimer’s disease: applications, evaluation, and perspective. Zool Res., 43(6), 1026-1040, 2022.

Contact person

Prof. Massimo Castagnaro

Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science (https://www.bca.unipd.it/)
University of Padova
tel.: +39-049-8272618
e-mail: massimo.castagnaro@unipd.it