Public release of AI that predicts biological sex from fundus images

The Japanese Ophthalmological Society and the National Institute of Informatics has made an artificial intelligence (AI) model that predicts biological sex from fundus images available to download online. 

“We expect that researchers will apply this AI model in the future research, and it helps elucidate the pathophysiology of diseases where the frequency of onset differs depending on biological sex,” a statement from the Research Organization of Information and Systems highlighted.

The model was developed using more than 131,000 fundus images from the Japan Ocular Imaging Registry as training data.

The accuracy of the model in predicting the correct biological sex from fundus images was 92%.

The public release follows the decision in January 2023 by the Japanese Ophthalmological Society and the National Institute of Informatics to make an AI model that estimates an individual’s age from fundus images available to researchers free of charge.