University of Guelph researchers have discovered Twitter can help detect the spread of disease outbreaks.

In what may be the first study to demonstrate Twitter’s use as an early warning system for tracking and mitigating potentially costly and dangerous poultry diseases, U of G computer scientists and veterinary researchers found 75 percent of real-world outbreaks of avian influenza – affecting poultry, not humans — occurring in the study period were detected on the social media platform.

The study, published recently in Nature Scientific Reports, found that in some cases, the outbreak notifications spiked on Twitter earlier than official reports from monitoring agencies.

Prof. Rozita Dara, School of Computer Science, says, “We hope to predict outbreaks earlier as a supplemental source of surveillance.”

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“Neurosurgeons always look in the brain; cardiologists always look in the heart. This new study looked at both,” says Tami Martino, a professor in U of G’s Department of Biomedical Sciences and director of the Centre for Cardiovascular Investigations.

Human patients with heart failure often have neurological conditions such as cognitive impairment and depression. Martino suspects the heart-brain connection involved the circadian mechanism molecule, called “clock.”

Circadian rhythms in humans and other organisms follow Earth’s 24-hour cycle of light and darkness, signalling when to sleep and when to be awake.

Researchers compared normal mice with mice carrying a mutation in their circadian mechanism. They found that the mutation affected the structure of neurons in brain areas important for cognition and mood. The team also found differences in clock regulation of blood vessels. The results were published recently in Nature Scientific Reports.

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