Hospital customers of GE Healthcare aren't looking to artificial intelligence (AI) to start whittling down radiologist staffing – or even necessarily to help guide patient diagnoses. Rather, they are seeking sharper, faster images and advanced analytics that will maximize their use of imaging resources through more efficient management. As part of its efforts to provide this, the Chicago-based imaging giant, has turned further to Santa Clara, Calif., chipmakers – expanding partnerships with Nvidia Corp. and Intel Corp.

In this age of the opioid epidemic, drug overdose has become the leading cause of death in the U.S. for people under 50 years of age. Payers and providers are desperate to reverse the swelling tide. Now, the FDA has cleared the first device for use in helping to reduce the symptoms of opioid withdrawal.

Type II diabetes has long been known as a risk factor in the eventual development of Alzheimer's disease. But prior research efforts to correlate blood glucose levels and Alzheimer's brain pathology have proved fruitless. Now, NIH researchers have published a study that finds a correlation between glucose levels in the brain, the associated cellular metabolic activity, and the severity of Alzheimer's disease pathology and symptoms.

A nanotech-based brain implant with probes that are thinner than a human hair has been developed and tested by a coalition of scientists. Those researchers recently published in Nature about their work monitoring the brains of live rats and mice via the novel device, with silicon probes so tiny that insertion into a living brain causes very little damage.