Medical cybernetics is a branch of

cybernetics Cybernetics is a wide-ranging field concerned with circular causality, such as feedback, in regulatory and purposive systems. Cybernetics is named after an example of circular causal feedback, that of steering a ship, where the helmsperson m ...

which has been heavily affected by the development of the

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

, which applies the concepts of cybernetics to

medical research Medical research (or biomedical research), also known as experimental medicine, encompasses a wide array of research, extending from "basic research" (also called ''bench science'' or ''bench research''), – involving fundamental scientif ...

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 syst ...

systems medicine Systems medicine is an interdisciplinary field of study that looks at the systems of the human body as part of an integrated whole, incorporating biochemical, physiological, and environment interactions. Systems medicine draws on systems science an ...

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 express ...

- 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 refers to both an approach in the field of cognitive science that hopes to explain mental phenomena using artificial neural networks (ANN) and to a wide range of techniques and algorithms using ANNs in the context of artificial in ...

and

decision theory Decision theory (or the theory of choice; not to be confused with choice theory) is a branch of applied probability theory concerned with the theory of making decisions based on assigning probabilities to various factors and assigning numerical ...

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, human ecology, ecology, hum ...

, medical decision making and

information processing Information processing is the change (processing) of information in any manner detectable by an observer. As such, it is a process that ''describes'' everything that happens (changes) in the universe, from the falling of a rock (a change in posit ...

structures in the

living organism In biology, an organism () is any living system that functions as an individual entity. All organisms are composed of cells (cell theory). Organisms are classified by taxonomy into groups such as multicellular animals, plants, and fungi; ...

. Approaches of medical cybernetics include: *

Systems theory Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its structu ...

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. With focus on medical application this field is also referred to as

. * Medical information and

: Motivated by the awareness of information being an essential principle of life, the application of communication theory to biomedicine aims at an 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 refers to both an approach in the field of cognitive science that hopes to explain mental phenomena using artificial neural networks (ANN) and to a wide range of techniques and algorithms using ANNs in the context of artificial in ...

: 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