i can see an immediate benefit if it can only help detect pd at stages where the first physical signs are enough to make 1 see a doctor. i imagine millions are wasted in tests for pinched nerves and other problems on diagnosing which to the trained eye is pd.
seems every yopd'er i have talked to had a few or more tests/doctor visits before seeing a neuro.
i imagine in a few years diagnostic tests for a lot of diseases will be a smart phone app.
there already are some.

so this math guy sets up a web site to record 10,000 voices, big deal, there's been research in using voice to diagnose and measure pd remotely for years. billions have likely been spent on voice recognition software by securitty/law enforcement/cia. seems like just an attention getter to me. this is going to take a tremendous amount of $$$$ and research before it might become useful for diagnosis and drug companies/researchers would use it.
and there are companies much farther along in this area. TED imho can be more hype than substance,
http://www.imedicalapps.com/2011/07/...sons-patients/

i imagine if you add video motion analysis, face recognition, voice recognition, movement measuring, cognitive testing, vital signs, all which could be cheaply captured on a smart phone, that would be far more useful and will likely be what going to materialize rather than just voice. there are likely hundreds of diagnostic/measurement apps on iphones either tied to your healthcare provider directly or for example you can take a picture of a mole, etc and send it to a company to be diagnosed.

http://www.idt.mdh.se/kurser/ct3340/...bmission_1.pdf

sorry if i seem a little negative, but this guy is getting way too much attn. imho.

Where has the comprehensive approach approach gotten us? In over 40 years of research, Sinemet despite its downfalls is still our only really proven treatment. We still have no common measuring point to develop blood or cerebro spinal fluid tests. When Andy Grove got involved in funding PD research, he made the key observation that never before had he seen people work so hard and achieve so little.

Andy Grove's Last Stand.

What Little is envisioning is revolutionary. He, along with Brin and Grove, are taking the medical research industry to the next level. They recognize we have a model that excels in generating a lot of info and data but scarcely makes anything of it. When does anyone and step back and say why no real progress? Andy Grove is doing just that at UCSF; they designed the virus vector after studying the Amgen records within five years of their aborted trials. That is being used in the Ceregene trials and will be used in the NIH GDNF trials. These guys, along with MJFF, are the only reason we seem to be making any progress.

I think Little's research is huge; if it pans out, we have one element that links us all, so we finally have that much desired point of measure to use in both diagnosis and tracking progression. Soccertese, you are right. Much literature already exists on vocal and speech changes in PD. From what i gather, Little is using that info and data, then using mathematical algorithms to make it useful. He essentially using what is already proven in many other studies and synthesizing it. How do you put that through phase trials? It either works, or it doesn't.

I do think the app development stuff a bit premature, but I don't think Little is being hyped.

John, this is very interesting.

In my own studies I discovered that the pulses from your brain stem and spinal chord that control every part of your body are rich with information about who you are. These pulses show up in the tremor in your hands, in your voice, in the pulses in the iris of your eye, in your breathing, heart rhythms, facial expressions, handwriting, etc. So, theoretically it is possible to capture and mathematically evaluate every movement you make for a host of diseases and physical problems.

I've already found data that indicates that your ancestry can be tracked by those signals as if you are looking at genetic DNA.

It sounds amazing, I know, but I sincerely feel that we are on the cusp of breakthroughs in mathematics and science that are going to transform the way we look at the world. Chaos Theory has already had some significant impacts and it's a brand new science.

It's an exciting time to be alive. At 62 years old I might be too old to benefit from many of the breakthroughs that are yet to come in PD but generations younger than I have much to be hopeful about. (Well, I guess that DBS sounds exciting and it's available now.)

Isn't it a pity that the social, religious and political sectors always have such a hard time keeping up with science? (i.e. stem cell research).

Thank you for your posts.

Steve