This supercomputer is helping Cincinnati Children's predict which kids might be at risk for anxiety

By Ann Thompson

Published March 6, 2023 at 4:58 AM EST

To run data from thousands of kids (some with anxiety and some without) on its own computers would take months for Cincinnati Children's. It takes a couple of hours on the Oak Ridge Lab computer, and just three seconds on its fastest computer. — To run data from thousands of kids — some with anxiety and some without — would take months for Cincinnati Children's on its own computers. It takes a couple of hours on the Oak Ridge Lab computer, and just three seconds on its fastest computer.

With the help of a federal supercomputer in Tennessee, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center is developing models which can tell with 75-80% accuracy which kids will develop anxiety and why.

The first set of models focus on kids between four and eight years of age because that’s where Associate Director of Cincinnati Children’s Research Foundation Dr. Tracy Glauser and his college John Pestian, director of Computational Medicine, see anxiety first occurring.

Dr. Tracy Glauser, associate director of Cincinnati Children's Research Foundaion — Dr. Tracy Glauser, associate director of Cincinnati Children's Research Foundation.

The hope is to "nip it in the bud," says Glauser. "If we can help people get back on the right trajectory, we can prevent a lifelong set of problems."

The two are entering data from 90,000 Greater Cincinnati kids who have been treated for anxiety at Children's over the last 15 years, as well as thousands of children who didn't experience any signs of it. All identifying factors have been removed.

There are tens of thousands of factors that go into the equation to develop a model, including environment, height, weight, body mass, notes from doctors and nurses, and what the patients have said.

"On a regular computer they would take 10 years," says Glauser. "On our supercomputers at Children's, they would still take months. On the computers down at Oak Ridge (Laboratory) they take a couple of hours. And very soon we're going to be moving to their fastest computer where it takes three seconds."

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John Pestian, PhD director of Children's Computational Medicine — John Pestian, Ph.d., director of Children's Computational Medicine.

Part of the plan is to tell the patient what factors triggered the computer to say why they're at risk for anxiety. Another important part of the research is to determine if there's inherent bias in the model that could perpetuate problems in the health care system. Children's is working with experts in England on that.

The computer models are constantly learning as new data is added. In the meantime, Glauser and Pestian are developing anxiety and depression curves that would be a resource for pediatricians. This would show "at what point do people's trajectory start to point them in the direction of having clinically significant anxiety."

More and more people are focused on this problem. The documentary Connecting the Dots is about youth mental health.

Connecting The Dots - Official Trailer (2020)

In a recent report, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say over the last 10 years nearly 60% of female students and nearly 70% of LGBQ+ students experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.