How pigeons are helping catch cancer cases in humans

It sounds a bit bizarre, but it’s tue. Among pigeons’ many talents is providing an extra set of eyes for doctors looking for signs of cancer in medical scans. In 2015, researchers enlisted the unlikely medical assistants to identify breast cancer in mammograms to help prevent imaging misses. Now, another team of scientists has recruited the birds yet again to train AI to help do the same.

In a study published earlier this year, researchers trained six pigeons to watch CT scan videos and spot lung nodules, a type of growth that could be a sign of cancer. After the birds learned to spot the lung nodules, they also started recognizing emphysema and ground-glass nodules — both problems they hadn’t even been trained on.

Here’s where AI comes in: The researchers are now trying to channel the pigeon’s keen visual system, which works similarly to the human’s unconscious visual system, to develop medical AI tools that can double, triple, and quadruple check scans. They noted that the pigeon-inspired method will by no means replace radiologists, but rather help ensure scans are understood as thoroughly as possible. Thanks in advance, pigeons!

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“I bet your mom would let me.”
-Pigeon, Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the B”
-Mo Willems, author, ‘Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!’

 

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Photo credit: Eastside Autobon Society

Source credits: Nice News, New Scientist, Joshua Howego, Popular Science, Clarissa Brincat

Authors and Affiliations

• Department of Psychology, College of the Holy Cross, 1 College Street, 01610, Worcester, MA, USA
  
  Muhammad A. J. Qadri, Reuben R. R. Reyes & Gregory J. DiGirolamo
• Department of Radiology, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Worcester, USA
  
  Daria Kifjak, Bilal Elkaddouri, Alexander A. Bankier, Max P. Rosen & Gregory J. DiGirolamo