Clinical support system and associated computer-implemented methods

Abstract

A clinical support system comprises a processor and a display component, wherein: the processor is configured to: receive image data, the image data representing an image of a plurality of cells obtained from a human or animal subject, the image data comprising a plurality of subsets of image data, each subset comprising data representing a portion of the image data corresponding to a respective cell of the plurality of cells; apply a trained deep learning neural network model to each subset of the image data, the deep learning neural network model comprising: a plurality of convolutional neural network layers each comprising a plurality of nodes; and a bottleneck layer comprising no more than ten nodes, wherein the processor is configured to apply the trained deep learning neural network model to each subset of the image data by applying the plurality of CNN layers, and subsequently applying the bottleneck layer, each node of the bottleneck layer of the machine-learning model configured to output a respective activation value for that subset of the image data; for each subset of the image data, derive a dataset comprising no more than three values, the values derived from the activation values of the nodes in the bottleneck layer; and generate instructions, which when executed by the display component of a clinical support system, cause the display component of the computer to display a plot in no more than three dimensions of the respective dataset of each subset of the image data. Associated computer-implemented methods, including for training the deep learning neural network model, are provided.