Digital Technology in Clinical Trials

Changes to speech and language occur in a broad range of neurological diseases and psychiatric disorders. Differences in both the acoustic patterns and linguistic characteristics can result from changes in cognition, mood and motor function. Tools to assess speech and language based on recent advances in natural language processing and machine learning techniques offer novel ways of detecting and quantifying these changes. In contrast to traditional clinical measures, these digital speech assessment tools can also be administered remotely, at high frequency, and with minimal training or instruction. Speech assessment tools therefore have the potential to enhance clinical trial design by providing sensitive measures of behavior, highly relevant to everyday function. In this presentation, we will present examples of speech assessment tools and provide an overview of how they have been used in different CNS clinical trials. We will review research demonstrating how speech and language patterns are relevant to disease and can be used to capture change over time.