What medieval handwriting can tell us about modern neurological diseases
Posted on: 22 January 2018
What medieval handwriting can tell us about modern neurological diseases and disorders was among topics explored at a public talk in Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute on Thursday, January 18, 2018.
How new technologies can help us diagnose neurological diseases in long-dead medieval scribes and possibly contribute to modern medical understanding was explored by three researchers from the fields of palaeography, electronic engineering and artificial intelligence in a fascinating talk entitled “Neuro-handwriting analysis: Where the Medieval and the 21st Century Collide”.
At the event palaeographer Dr Deborah Thorpe, Trinity Long Room Hub Marie Sk?odowska-Curie Cofund Fellow, was joined by electronic engineers Professor Stephen Smith (University of York) and Dr Márjory Da Costa-Abreu (DIMAp/UFRN, Brazil) to investigate clues about neurological diseases and disorders in medieval handwriting.
Topics explored in the talk included what type of tremors can be seen in medieval handwriting, how researchers can recover the speed and fluidity of the writing process when the writer is long dead and how the analysis of medieval handwriting might inform the diagnosis of patients in neurology clinics today.
Dr Deborah Thorpe commented: "In my work as a medical historian I've noticed tremors in many examples of writing by medieval monks and other professional scribes. I've long wondered about the causes of these writing problems and how a scribe would have coped with them. To answer this I’ve been collaborating closely with neurologists to learn more from their expertise in modern medicine.”
“It is of course impossible to assess a long-dead medieval scribe in clinic in the way that a doctor would with a modern patient and as a result many of the diagnostic clues have been lost. Using cutting-edge digital technology my work is focusing on an attempt to recover some of the lost dynamic features of writing, such as the speed and fluidity of writing. I hope this information could give us important clues about an individual scribe's neurological health and possibly contribute to modern medical understanding."
The event forms part of Trinity’s Neurohumanities Seminar Series 2017-18 organised by Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Science Gallery Dublin and the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute. The series is supported by the Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund (ISSF).
Biographies:
Dr Deborah Thorpe is a Trinity Long Room Hub Marie Sk?odowska-Curie Cofund Fellow. Trained as a palaeographer and a medical historian, she uses a combination of historical handwriting analysis and neurological insight to analyse the impact of ageing and age-related medical disorders on medieval script. Dr Thorpe is also a visiting fellow at the Department of Electronic Engineering at the University of York. While at Trinity Dr Thorpe will carry out a palaeographical study of the work of ageing and elderly scribes in medieval and early modern manuscript books and documents, with a focus on Irish resources. The aim of her research is to better understand the handwriting changes associated with normal physiological ageing, as well as the stylistic developments that occurred as fashions changed, and scribes were influenced by patrons and other scribes around them. The research develops a novel interdisciplinary methodology to investigate the links between physiological ageing processes and the forms and features of historical handwriting. It combines palaeography — scrutiny of features of the writing — with medical understanding of the physical, neurological and psychological factors affecting movement, and how these factors are accessed and monitored in modern clinical practice.
Professor Stephen Smith is a professor in the Department of Electronic Engineering at the University of York. His research is centred on developing evolutionary algorithms, a form of artificial intelligence, and applying them to the diagnosis and monitoring of neurological conditions such as Parkinson's through the analysis of patients' movements. Stephen is also co-founder and director of ClearSky Medical Diagnostics Ltd., a university spin-out company set up with the assistance of the Royal Academy of Engineering that markets clinically validated medical devices, developed from his research. Stephen is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the British Computer Society.
Dr Márjory Da Costa-Abreu is a lecturer in Artificial Intelligence at DIMAp/UFRN. She has a PhD in Electronic Engineering from the University of Kent (UK) and a MSc in Computer Science from UFRN (BR). She has experience in Biometrics analysis and identity prediction, forensics, the effects of ageing in biometrics and soft-biometric prediction techniques.