Medical cybernetics

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Medical Cybernetics is a branch of cybernetics which has been heavily affected by the development of the computer,[1] which applies the concepts of cybernetics to medical research and practice. It covers an emerging working program for the application of systems- and communication theory, connectionism and decision theory on biomedical research and health related questions.

Overview

Medical cybernetics searches for quantitative descriptions of biological dynamics.[2] It investigates intercausal networks in human biology, medical decision making and information processing structures in the living organism.

Topics in medical cybernetics:

  • Systems theory in medical sciences: The scope of systems theory in the medical sciences is searching for and modelling of physiological dynamics in the intact and diseased organism to gain deeper insights into the organizational principles of life and its perturbations.[2]
  • Medical information and communication theory: Motivated by the awareness of information as an essential principle of life the application of communication theory to biomedicine aims to mathematically describe signalling processes and information storage in different physiological layers.[2]
  • Connectionism: Connectionistic models describe information processing in neural networks – thus forming a bridge between biological and technological research.[2]
  • Medical decision theory (MDT): The Goal of MDT is to gather evidence based foundations for decision making in the clinical setting.[2]

See also

References

  1. Brian H. Rudall (2000). "Cybernetics and systems in the 1980s". In: Kybernetes. Vol 29. Issue 5/6 p.595-611.
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 J.W. Dietrich (2004), Medical Cybernetics – A Definition, Medizinische Kybernetik, 2004. Released under creative commons 2.0 attribution licence.

Further reading

  • V.V. Parin (1959), "Introduction to medical Cybernetics" in NASA Technical Translation no.F-459-F-462, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1959.
  • C.A. Muses (1965). "Aspects of some crucial problems in biological and medical cybernetics". In: Progress in biocybernetics, 1965.

External links