An improved sample balanced genetic algorithm and extreme learning machine for accurate Alzheimer disease diagnosis

An improved sample balanced genetic algorithm and Extreme Learning Machine (iSBGA-ELM) was designed for accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer disease (AD) and identification of biomarkers associated with AD in this paper. The proposed AD diagnosis approach uses a set of magnetic resonance imaging scans in Open Access Series of Imaging Studies (OASIS) public database to build an efficient AD classifier. The approach contains two steps: "voxels selection" based on an iSBGA and "AD classification" based on the ELM. In the first step, the proposed iSBGA searches for a robust subset of voxels with promising properties for further AD diagnosis. The robust subset of voxels chosen by iSBGA is then used to build an AD classifier based on the ELM. A robust subset of voxels keeps a high generalization performance of AD classification in various scenarios and highlights the importance of the chosen voxels for AD research. The AD classifier with maximum classification accuracy is created using an optimal subset of robust voxels. It represents the final AD diagnosis approach. Experiments with the proposed iSBGA-ELM using OASIS data set showed an average testing accuracy of 87%. Experiments clearly indicated the proposed iSBGA-ELM was efficient for AD diagnosis. It showed improvements over existing techniques. © 2016. The Korean Institute of Information Scientists and Engineers.