Predicting Alzheimer’s Disease Conversion From Mild Cognitive Impairment Using an Extreme Learning Machine-Based Grading Method With Multimodal Data

Identifying patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) who are at high risk of progressing to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is crucial for early treatment of AD. However, it is difficult to predict the cognitive states of patients. This study developed an extreme learning machine (ELM)-based grading method to efficiently fuse multimodal data and predict MCI-to-AD conversion. First, features were extracted from magnetic resonance (MR) images, and useful features were selected using a feature selection method. Second, multiple modalities of MCI subjects, including MRI, positron emission tomography, cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers, and gene data, were individually graded using the ELM method. Finally, these grading scores calculated from different modalities were fed into a classifier to discriminate subjects with progressive MCI from those with stable MCI. The proposed approach has been validated on the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) cohort, and an accuracy of 84.7% was achieved for an AD prediction within 3 years. Experiments on predicting AD conversion from MCI within different periods showed similar results with the 3-year prediction. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach benefits from the efficient fusion of four modalities, resulting in an accurate prediction of MCI-to-AD conversion.