Medical cybernetics is a branch of

cybernetics Cybernetics is the transdisciplinary study of circular causal processes such as feedback and recursion, where the effects of a system's actions (its outputs) return as inputs to that system, influencing subsequent action. It is concerned with ...

which has been heavily affected by the development of the

computer A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic set ...

, which applies the concepts of cybernetics to

medical research Medical research (or biomedical research), also known as health research, refers to the process of using scientific methods with the aim to produce knowledge about human diseases, the prevention and treatment of illness, and the promotion of ...

and practice. At the intersection of

systems biology Systems biology is the computational modeling, computational and mathematical analysis and modeling of complex biological systems. It is a biology-based interdisciplinary field of study that focuses on complex interactions within biological system ...

, systems medicine and clinical applications it covers an emerging working program for the application of

systems A system is a group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment, is described by its boundaries, structure and purpose and is exp ...

- and

communication theory Communication theory is a proposed description of communication phenomena, the relationships among them, a storyline describing these relationships, and an argument for these three elements. Communication theory provides a way of talking about a ...

connectionism Connectionism is an approach to the study of human mental processes and cognition that utilizes mathematical models known as connectionist networks or artificial neural networks. Connectionism has had many "waves" since its beginnings. The first ...

and

decision theory Decision theory or the theory of rational choice is a branch of probability theory, probability, economics, and analytic philosophy that uses expected utility and probabilities, probability to model how individuals would behave Rationality, ratio ...

on biomedical research and health related questions.

Overview

Medical cybernetics searches for quantitative descriptions of biological dynamics.J.W. Dietrich (2004)
''Medical Cybernetics – A Definition''
Medizinische Kybernetik, 2004. Released under creative commons 2.0 attribution licence. It investigates intercausal networks in

human biology Human biology is an interdisciplinary area of academic study that examines humans through the influences and interplay of many diverse fields such as genetics, evolution, physiology, anatomy, epidemiology, anthropology, ecology, nutrition, populat ...

, medical decision making and

information processing In cognitive psychology, information processing is an approach to the goal of understanding human thinking that treats cognition as essentially Computing, computational in nature, with the mind being the ''software'' and the brain being the ''hard ...

structures in the

living organism An organism is any life, living thing that functions as an individual. Such a definition raises more problems than it solves, not least because the concept of an individual is also difficult. Many criteria, few of them widely accepted, have be ...

. Approaches of medical cybernetics include: *

Systems theory Systems theory is the Transdisciplinarity, transdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or artificial. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, de ...

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. Its aim is to arrive at deeper insights into the organizational principles of life and its perturbations. Based on cybernetic models, improved diagnostical strategies and methods for personalised therapy of chronic diseases have been developed. With focus on medical application this field is also referred to as systems medicine. * Medical information and

: Motivated by the awareness of information being an essential principle of life, the application of communication theory to biomedicine aims at a mathematical description of signalling processes and information storage in different physiological layers. This attempt also includes theories on the information theory of the genetic code. *

Connectionism Connectionism is an approach to the study of human mental processes and cognition that utilizes mathematical models known as connectionist networks or artificial neural networks. Connectionism has had many "waves" since its beginnings. The first ...

: Connectionistic models describe information processing in neural networks – thus forming a bridge between biological and technological research. * Medical decision theory (MDT): The Goal of MDT is to gather evidence based foundations for decision making in the clinical setting.

References

External links

Institute for Medical Cybernetics and Artificial Intelligence, Medical University Vienna, Austria

Medical Cybernetics in the Open Encyclopedia Project

Portal Server Medizinische Kybernetik , Medical Cybernetics

UCLA Biocybernetics Laboratory, Los Angeles, Ca, USA
{{DEFAULTSORT:Medical Cybernetics Biomedical cybernetics

Overview

See also

References

Further reading

External links