arXiv:2605.24913eess.IVcs.AI2026-05

用可解释AI分析眼底图像,发现血管信号能预测糖尿病系统性风险。

Explainable Multi-Task Retinal Imaging Reveals Microvascular Signals for Systemic Risk Stratification in Type 2 Diabetes: A Pilot Study

  • 多任务深度学习框架同步预测血糖、肾功能与全身异常。
  • 肾脏异常预测准确率最高(AUC达0.63),血管区域是关键线索。
  • 通过可视化验证,模型注意力集中在血管和视盘周围区域。

眼底成像为非侵入式评估全身微血管健康提供了可能,但其特征是否能通过可解释人工智能(XAI)可靠反映生物学意义的系统性信号尚不明确。本研究构建了一种可解释的多任务深度学习框架,探究2型糖尿病患者眼底微血管特征与系统性异常的关联。基于2719名个体共11,011张眼底图像,采用共享神经网络搭配任务特异性输出头,分别预测血糖状态、肾功能异常及多系统受累情况。通过梯度加权类激活映射(Grad-CAM)、解剖掩码和血管对齐分析评估模型可解释性。结果显示,各任务预测性能各异,其中肾功能异常预测最优(AUC最高达0.63),而血糖状态预测表现较弱(AUC为0.49–0.61)。可解释性分析一致将模型注意力聚焦于视网膜血管与视盘周围区域。掩码实验表明,遮蔽血管区域导致性能下降最显著,证实血管是主要预测来源。不同模型架构表现出异质性注意力模式,暗示系统信号存在多种编码路径。该初步研究证明,眼底微血管特征包含可量化的系统性异常信号,尤其与微血管损伤相关。通过融合多任务学习与量化XAI验证,本框架推动眼底成像向可解释的数字生物标志物发展,助力糖尿病系统风险分层。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Retinal imaging provides a non-invasive window into systemic microvascular health and has emerged as a potential biomarker for systemic diseases. However, whether retinal features encode biologically meaningful systemic signals that can be reliably interpreted using explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) remains unclear. An explainable multi-task deep learning framework was developed to investigate associations between retinal microvascular features and systemic abnormalities in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. A total of 11,011 fundus images from 2,719 individuals were analysed using a shared neural network with task-specific heads for glycaemic status, kidney abnormality, and multi-system involvement. Model interpretability was evaluated using Gradient-weighted Class Activation Mapping (Grad-CAM), anatomical masking, and vessel alignment analysis. The framework demonstrated task-dependent predictive performance, with the best discrimination observed for kidney abnormality (AUC up to 0.63), whereas glycaemic status prediction showed limited performance (AUC = 0.49-0.61). Explainability analyses consistently localized model attention to retinal vessels and peripapillary regions. Masking experiments showed that occlusion of vascular regions caused the greatest performance decline, indicating that retinal vessels were the primary predictive source. Different architectures exhibited heterogeneous attention patterns, suggesting multiple representational pathways for systemic signal encoding. This pilot study demonstrates that retinal microvascular features contain measurable signals associated with systemic abnormalities, particularly microvascular damage. By integrating multi-task learning with quantitative XAI validation, this framework advances retinal imaging toward interpretable digital biomarkers for systemic risk stratification in diabetes.

眼底成像可解释AI糖尿病微血管

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