# Can Semantics Uncover Hidden Relations between Neurodegenerative Diseases and Artistic Behaviors?
## 4 State-of-the-Art
### Ontologies Related to NDs
In the field of AD research, the early diagnosis of moderate cognitive impairment (MCI) has become a crucial goal, as it is a transitional phase between normal aging and dementia. However, information related to MCI and AD is scattered across various forms and standards created by different systems, making manual interaction problematic. To address this challenge, ontologies emerged as a solution due to their ability to provide homogeneity and agreement in data representation and reuse. The NIO ontology represents a major effort to address this challenge by integrating knowledge about neuropsychological testing (NT), AD, cognitive processes, and brain regions. The ontology promotes interoperability and data access by merging disparate information from several fields, making it relevant for other study groups as well. The authors followed the ontology-building life cycle to ensure the stability and reusability of the NIO ontology, combining and extending terms from four separate reference ontologies [83]. The NIO ontology is a well-structured and comprehensive ontology that offers a valuable solution to the challenge of integrating disparate information in the field of NDs and cognitive functions. The ontology is not only useful for its intended domain but also relevant for other study groups due to its ability to promote interoperability and data access. [PERSON] et al. [84] presented the Parkinson's Disease Ontology (PDON), which was built using the standard life cycle of ontology development and provides a standardized vocabulary and set of definitions for describing and representing information about PD and its associated symptoms, treatments, and clinical studies. The PDON is designed to support interoperability and data sharing in the PD research community and can be used to enhance the accuracy and consistency of data annotation and analysis. The authors went to great lengths to evaluate the ontology on several levels, including functional, structural, and expert evaluations, to ensure its quality and usability. They also introduced a new metric to measure the gain of new knowledge from using the ontology. Additionally, a cause-and-effect model was created and two gene expression studies from the Gene Expression Omnibus database [85], a public repository of high-throughput gene expression and other functional genomics data sets, were re-annotated to demonstrate the usefulness of the ontology. The ontology features a subclass-based taxonomic hierarchy that encompasses a broad range of biomedical concepts, from the molecular level to the clinical level, and includes 632 concepts organized under 9 different views [84]. The evaluations showed that the ontology has the ability to answer specific questions related to PD. However, more detailed information about the patient cohort is often contained in the original article that describes the data set. In this case, the relevant data collection was disclosed in an open access paper, and the journal's rules allowed for automated analysis of the complete text. As a result, the entire text of the paper reporting was subjected to automated analysis using PDON keywords [86; 87]. This was achieved through a UIMA-based annotation procedure using words from the PDON nomenclature. The Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA) [88] is a type of content analytics software that is used for natural language processing in large amounts of unstructured material, such as biomedical papers [87]. The Parkinson Movement Disorder Ontology (PMDO) [89] is a valuable ontology for PD that was developed through an extensive review of literature led by movement disorder specialists and a systematic analysis of movement disorder instruments. It was developed using an iterative ontology engineering process, and it focuses on Parkinsonian disorders. PMDO contains classes representing three broad categories--neurological findings, treatment plans, and instruments--used to evaluate various traits of PD.