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Original

Technology Transfer from the Science of Medicine to the Real World: The Potential Role Played by Artificial Adaptive Systems

Pages 267-304 | Published online: 03 Jul 2009
 

Abstract

The author describes a refiguration of medical thought that originates from nonlinear dynamics and chaos theory. The coupling of computer science and these new theoretical bases coming from complex systems mathematics allows the creation of “intelligent” agents capable of adapting themselves dynamically to problems of high complexity: the artificial neural networks (ANNs). ANNs are able to reproduce the dynamic interaction of multiple factors simultaneously, allowing the study of complexity; they can also draw conclusions on an individual basis and not as average trends. These tools can allow a more efficient technology transfer from the science of medicine to the real world, overcoming many obstacles responsible for the present translational failure. They also contribute to a new holistic vision of the human subject person, contrasting the statistical reductionism that tends to squeeze or even delete the single subject, sacrificing him to his group of belongingness. A remarkable contribution to this individual approach comes from fuzzy logic, according to which there are no sharp limits between opposite things, such as wealth and disease. This approach allows one to partially escape from the probability theory trap in situations where it is fundamental to express a judgement based on a single case and favor a novel humanism directed to the management of the patient as an individual subject person.

Notes

Notes

1. This complex area will not be reviewed in this article. The reader is referred to Albert-Lászlo Barabási, “Linked” (2003) Plume.

2. Professor Barabasi has noted critical dimensions such as whether what is observed is part of a network or not and is random driven or law driven.

3. Bracco, Founded in 1927 by the family who gave it its-name and which has been at itshelm for three generations and still runs it today, is an integrated healthcare Group, world leader in global solutions for the diagnostic imaging field. Born as the pharmaceuticals trading concern, throughout the decades the company developed an independent industrial production and research activity, specializing in R&D capacities in a specific field—that of diagnostic imaging: in the 1970s, Bracco's laboratories disioveld and developed the iopamidol molecule, the first ready-to-use non-ionic contrast medium.

4. Czech pathologist, immunologist, and poet.

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