Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Explore 1.5M+ audiobooks & ebooks free for days

    Only $12.99 CAD/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Can Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics Save the Future of Psychiatry?: The Search for a New Psychiatry and Other Challenges
    Can Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics Save the Future of Psychiatry?: The Search for a New Psychiatry and Other Challenges
    Can Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics Save the Future of Psychiatry?: The Search for a New Psychiatry and Other Challenges
    Ebook271 pages2 hours

    Can Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics Save the Future of Psychiatry?: The Search for a New Psychiatry and Other Challenges

    By A. George Awad

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    This book is the second of the series about the imperatives for the search for new psychiatry. As stated in my recent 2021 book about: The Search for New Psychiatry, current psychiatric practices have failed many: patients and their families, their doctors and the society at large. That was the end of the 2021 book and the beginning of this book as a follow up in search for pathways to a new and more effective science-based practice Based on its major contributions to the recent successful and expedient development of the Covid 19 vaccines, I am proposing the same pathway of using the new revolution in informatics as the way to save and secure the future of psychiatry and that is what I am recommending in this book reaping the benefit of AI and Big Data Analytics but with a wide open eye on its limits, reliability, risks, unforeseen or unintentional harms.
    Part Two of the book deals with a number of perineal and also new challenges that continue to require better understanding and resolution. Among the phenomenological and nosological challenges, the recent development by Neurology of its subspeciality of Behavioral Neurology in competition to Neuropsychiatry, is reviewed in terms of an opportunity for integration of the tow subspecialities towards the creation of a new third field of “Clinical Neurosciences”. Other challenges included are: The Subjective /Objective Dichotomy, Lunacy and the Moon- reflections on the interactions of the brain and environment and Woke Psychiatry, what is it?
    Several other clinical challenges include: The Past is Coming Back as The Future -The Rise, Fall and Rise Again of Psychedelics, Loneliness as the silent disorder and several other challenges.
    At the end, a postscript has been hastily added in memory of a close friend, a pioneering psychopharmacologist but above all an empathic humanist, Professor Thomas Arthur Ban or as he always preferred, Tom.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateApr 26, 2023
    ISBN9781663252685
    Can Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics Save the Future of Psychiatry?: The Search for a New Psychiatry and Other Challenges
    Author

    A. George Awad

    Dr. Awad is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry and is on the Faculty of the School of Graduate Studies at the Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto, Canada In 1949, I enrolled in medical studies at the Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Egypt. Throughout my six years of medical undergraduate studies, Cairo and other major cities were besieged by major political upheaval, including frequent massive demonstrations that at that time had led to violence and the assassination of politicians. The economy was failing, moving from one crisis to another and was further crippled by rising religious extremism. Among the major events that led to the temporary disruption of regular life and suspension of schools and university studies, was the humiliating defeat of the ill-prepared Egyptian army in 1948, in the Israeli War of Independence in Palestine. In January 1952, Cairo was besieged by massive demonstrations that lead to the torching of the centre of Cairo, including all foreign and, specifically, British-owned fashion and entertainment businesses, in what is known as Black Saturday. This major incidence was triggered by the massacre of over fifty Egyptian police officers in the city of Ismailia, beside the Suez Canal, by British army forces camped around the canal, under the false pretense that the police officers were preparing to attack the British garrison nearby. In six months, amidst the political unravelling in Cairo and other big cities, the Egyptian army seized power, abandoned the corrupt monarchy, toppled the government and assumed full political and governmental power in what became known as the “July 23rd Revolution”. About four years later, in 1956, the year that was assigned to be the graduation of our medical class, all of a sudden the country was besieged by an abrupt and rather complex disquieting event known as the Suez Crisis, that quickly impacted several aspects of regular life, including the postponement of my graduation until the following year. The Suez Crisis began with what started as an ambitious plan to deal with major economic disparities between the failing agricultural sector and big-city economies, through the construction on the Nile of one of the world’s largest embankment dams, the Aswan High Dam. It was to provide year-round water for expanded agricultural purposes and for further generations of electricity, to enhance the electrification plans of the countryside outside big cities. It was good and encouraging news for Egypt, but President Nasser and his government had to secure massive economic support for such a major project from the United States, the United Kingdom and other wealthy countries. However, in early 1956, the United States and other countries started to express displeasure with President Nasser’s evolving close relationship with the Soviet Union and its allies for the procurement of modern military weaponry. With President Nasser ignoring such threats and becoming more critical of western countries meddling in Egyptian internal policies, in no time the conflict turned into a major crisis, with the United Kingdom and the United States threatening the suspension of the funding plans of the Aswan High Dam. The crisis became further deepened by the rise of the western powers’ concerns about Nasser’s overambitious political influence in the Middle East. By mid-1956, with the failure of the negotiations, the western countries announced the suspension of the funding agreement. In an angry and retaliative response, President Nasser announced the seizure of the Suez Canal management, in a major speech given on the fourth anniversary of the 1952 army revolution. Management of the canal had been imposed by western countries shortly after its opening in 1863, as the result of concerns about massive foreign debts incurred during the construction of the canal and the extra lavish expenditure incurred by the Ottoman/Egyptian ruler, Khedive Ismail, in the opening celebrations of the canal. The highly secretive arrangement by the United Kingdom, France and Israel to seize back the management of the Suez Canal by force seemed to quickly fade away and eventually failed, as a result of the massive protests critical of the return of the colonial era, as well as the United States’ negative response for not being consulted about the Tripartite Invasion and the fear of precipitating a much bigger conflict and war with the Soviet Union. In the end, President Nasser was clearly the winner, reclaiming the ownership of the canal. As a result, he was emboldened to continue his expansive and aggressive international plans, threatening neighbouring countries. On the other hand, the Suez Crisis, in personal terms, turned out to be a major negative turning point for my future plans and my life in general. My early arrangements for further post-graduate studies in London, as was frequently done by Egyptian medical graduates, was abruptly cancelled as a result of the suspension of all relationships between the UK and Egypt, in the aftermath of the failed Suez Canal invasion. The only alternative was to accept my first independent job, an assignment as a rural physician serving a rather poor and remote region of Egypt, close to the Suez Canal and the extensive British camps that held the British garrison that continued their occupation of Egypt. My three-year medical service in the impoverished region of Bani Ayoub, turned out to be the best experience for a young physician early in his/her medical career. Successfully fighting pellagra, a major endemic nutritional deficiency condition, brought quick fame to me and conferred on me almost magical and mystical powers. The noted lack of energy and the tiredness and lethargy of pellagra’s victims, including common serious dermatological skin changes, as well as the more serious central nervous-system complications that led to cognitive deficits such as dementia, began improving in a matter of less than six months of treatment with vitamin and nutritional supplements, such as inexpensive Baker’s yeast and its rich vitamin B complex, which seemed to clearly make a major gradual recovery that looked like a general “awakening”. As often noted, success and fame brings more success and further fame. Word of my local popularity eventually reached and impressed my superiors in Cairo, who declared my medical program in Bani Ayoub a resource for the field testing of new medications. An added responsibility was quickly established to test the very new and soon to be approved contraceptive pill, donated by an American international foundation interested in social engineering in over-populated, but underdeveloped countries. Our quickly established contraception clinic, without any fanfare nor much publicity in order to avoid antagonizing religious local authorities, proved to be an immediate success, most likely as a result of a small monetary added reward for the patients of ten piastres. A new focus was on the emerging and significant socioeconomic problem of the rapidly increasing population in Egypt, although, with its sparse population, it was not a significant challenge in the region I was serving. Nevertheless, the new focus brought me closer to my continuing interest in academic medicine, by seconding me on a part-time capacity basis to join Professor Fouad Al-Hifnawi, to assist him in developing a new academic program concerning reproductive biology and population growth, at the recently developed National Research Centre in Cairo. Back in the region of Bani Ayoub the program proved to be a success by the number of women enrolled, though in my opinion the program was a mixed success, as a significant number of women were observed dropping the pills in the river on their way home from the clinic, despite my continuous urging of my superiors in Cairo to introduce a medication education and support program.

    Related to Can Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics Save the Future of Psychiatry?

    Related ebooks

    Biography & Memoir For You

    View More
    View More

    Related categories

    Reviews for Can Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics Save the Future of Psychiatry?

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Can Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics Save the Future of Psychiatry? - A. George Awad

      Can Artificial Intelligence and

      Big Data Analytics Save the

      Future of Psychiatry?

      The Search for a New Psychiatry

      and Other Challenges

      A. George Awad

      51860.png

      CAN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND BIG DATA ANALYTICS SAVE THE FUTURE OF PSYCHIATRY?

      THE SEARCH FOR A NEW PSYCHIATRY AND OTHER CHALLENGES

      Copyright © 2023 A. George Awad.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      iUniverse

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.iuniverse.com

      844-349-9409

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

      ISBN: 978-1-6632-5267-8 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-6632-5268-5 (e)

      iUniverse rev. date: 04/24/2023

      CONTENTS

      Dedication

      Acknowledgement

      Foreword

      Introduction

      PART A: Can New Information Technology Save the Future of Psychiatry?

      1)   Starting From Where I Stopped

      2)   But Then the Covid-19 Pandemic Hit Hard – Necessity Brings Creativity

      3)   The Science and Technology Behind the Development of the New mRNA Covid 19 Vaccine – Why it is Relevant to Psychiatry

      •   What is DNA?

      •   From Peas to Genome

      •   What is RNA, mRNA?

      4)   Artificial Intelligence (AI)

      •   a) A Brief Historical Account

      •   Artificial Intelligence (AI): Levels, Benefits and Risks

      •   Levels and Categorization of Artificial Intelligence

      ◦   The Four Category AI Model

      ◦   The Three Category AI Model

      •   Benefits: What AI Can Provide

      •   AI Risks and Harms

      •   AI Ethical and Legal Risks

      •   Potential and Unintentional Racial Bias

      •   Potential for Plagiarism and Confabulation

      •   Application of AI Technology in Medicine

      •   Artificial Intelligence in Psychiatry

      5)   The Current State of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Psychiatry, and the Reasons for Low Interest Among Psychiatrists

      •   AI in Medicine

      •   AI in Psychiatry and the Reasons for Low Interest Among Psychiatrists

      •   A Brief Account of the Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons of Canada re: AI and Emerging Digital Technologies

      6)   Artificial Intelligence and Predictive Strategies in Psychiatry

      •   a) Predictive Strategies – A Brief Historical Note

      •   b) What is Pharmacogenomics?

      7)   Imagining Psychiatry in the Era of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data

      8)   The Big Question: Can Artificial Intelligence Deep Machine Learning and Big Data Analytics Save the Future of Psychiatry?

      Part B: Other Challenges and Controversies – Phenomenological and Nosological Challenges

      9)   Part B1: Neuropsychiatry, Behavioural Neurology and the Inevitable Meeting of Minds

      10)   The Subjective/Objective Dichotomy – Relevance to Nosology, Research and Clinical Practice

      11)   Lunacy and the Moon - Reflections on the Interactions of the Brain and the Environment

      12)   Woke Psychiatry! What is it?

      13)   The Ignored and Uncommon Psychiatric Disorders and The Herd Pattern of Psychiatric Research Interests

      •   Periodic Catatonia

      •   The En Masse Shifts in Psychiatric Research Patterns

      Part B2: Clinical Challenges

      14)   Notes on Creativity, Emotions and Psychiatric Disorders

      15)   Loneliness: The Invisible and Silent Disorder

      •   The Medical and Psychiatric Implications of Loneliness

      16)   The Fear of Taking Medications - The Nocebo Concept

      17)   Prolonging Illness Behaviour and the Contribution of Ruminative and Clinging Behaviours

      18)   The Past is Coming Back as the Future: The Rise, Fall and Rise Again of Psychedelics

      19)   Alternative Medicine Versus Alternative To Medicine - Reflections on the Blurry Line Between Science and Commercialism

      20)   Can Physicians Ethically Practice Against Science and Mainstream Medical Consensus?

      21)   Aging and Its Many Impacts

      •   a) Aging Gracefully. Really?!

      •   b) Long Term Care and Family Burden of Caring

      •   c) Burden of Caring in Major Psychiatric Disorders

      Postscript in Memoriam

      Part C: Conclusion

      Bibliography

      In Praise Of The Search for a New Psychiatry by A. George Awad

      About the Book

      Books Published by the Author

      About the Author, in His Own Narrative

      DEDICATION

      To my wife, Lara, and our son, Michel, for their valuable encouragement and support. Lara’s engineering skills, plus her extensive astronomical knowledge and her futuristic expertise has added value and guided the development process of this manuscript. Our son, Michel (Michael, as he is better known), has enhanced this book with his advice and expertise in the arts and design, in the preparation of the front and back covers, as well as all the pages in between. Thanks, Michel.

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

      As in previous books, I am indebted to Ms. Pamela Walsh for her valuable and competent assistance in the preparation of the manuscript for this book, from my own scribbles to a much better and more readable text. It is a skill that has added clarity and value. Many thanks, Pam.

      FC%20IMG.jpg

      Just before spring thaw-by the author AG Awad,

      Oil on Canvas,14x14,1974

      FOREWORD

      George Awad is a physician with a unique history: Childhood and medical school in Egypt followed by general practice in a small village, a PhD in pharmacology in Moscow, then a stint in Italy to study cardiovascular response to stress, followed by immigration to Canada. He was doing an internship in Toronto to qualify for practice in Canada and I, a local boy, was doing a rotation in general surgery as part of my neurosurgical training. How lucky for me that we wound up at the same hospital. In this book, Dr. Awad writes about the age that we are all entering in which artificial intelligence (AI) will alter every aspect of human endeavor. He describes the historic disconnect between brain sciences and the mind, as represented by behavioural neurology with its emphasis on how physical disease alters behaviour, and psychiatry which has mostly relied on the observation of human behaviour without reference to the physical brain. Since the advent of chlorpromazine in the 1950s, the first widely used psychotropic medication, there has been considerable effort given to elucidating the effect of altered brain chemistry on emotion and cognition from the psychiatric side. Dr. Awad has participated in the exploration of the mind brain connection over a lifetime of clinical practice and clinical trials of psychotropic medication. He has been a leader both in the organization of scientific investigation and the quotidian delivery of individual psychiatric care.

      I can think of no better guide to follow into this brave new world.

                                  Michael Louis Schwartz

                                  Professor, Department of Surgery

                                  University of Toronto, Division of Neurosurgery,

                                  Hurvitz Brain Science,

                                  Sunnybrook Health Science Centre

                                  Toronto. Canada

      INTRODUCTION

      The Continued Search for a New Psychiatry

      This book is the second of my recent series about the search for a new and stronger psychiatry. The first book of this series was published in 2021, with the title The Search for a New Psychiatry – On Becoming a Psychiatrist, a Neuroscientist and Other Fragments of Memory. The idea behind last year’s book was to review both the historical development and the current state of psychiatry, written as a biographical sketch of my own experiences over the past sixty years, which in reality almost corresponds to the development of modern psychiatry itself, from the 1940s onward.

      What quickly became clear was the uneven state of progress in psychiatry, with a few short peaks of optimism and scientific progress, separated by lengthy periods of stagnation and dominated by low or no progress. The initial progressive period in the 1940s and early 1950s was boosted by the major development of the antipsychotic Chlorpromazine and a few other similar medications, the introduction of new and more specific antidepressants, and all augmented by the gradually waning state of the psychoanalytic dogma that dominated the field for several decades prior.

      It wasn’t long before this optimistic and progressive phase was tempered by the recognition of the various limitations of the new class of antipsychotics. Not only did Chlorpromazine and related medications prove to be not fully effective against the broad spectrum of psychotic symptoms in schizophrenia, but also by the emergence of frequent serious side effects, undermining compliant behaviour. Nevertheless, the introduction of this class of medications, though not fully effective, facilitated the precipitous discharge of chronic psychiatric patients from psychiatric asylums to a community that was not welcoming, nor able to support them. It was a move that crippled the proper organization of psychiatric services for a long time to come. The rapid and inadequately prepared shift from the asylum to the community may have hastened the demise of the dreadful mental asylums and quickly led to a clearly fragmented model of care that was generally of poor quality and lacked effectiveness.

      Such was the state of psychiatry in the 1970s, with no one seemingly satisfied. Patients continued to struggle with treatments that proved to be, at best, only partially effective, and they experienced serious side effects. Families were burdened by frequently having to assume the role of caregivers, and doctors felt limited by unmet needs, both in science and clinical practice. Several commissions, task forces and major reviews were established, but their efforts proved to be no more than tweaks, as it became clear that pouring funds into a broken system produced no significant reforms. Though advances in medical technology in the late 1980s had provided exceptional opportunities for psychiatry by the introduction of neuroimaging technology, it was quickly limited by the absence of further technological improvement. In the end, though pockets of progress managed to continue, it was too little and too slow to satisfy patients and their doctors, who still continue to be burdened by the lack of backing by strong science and practice in a poorly funded and fragmented clinical service model. That was my conclusion in the 2021 book.

      In other words, the 2021 book provided the imperative for the search for a new psychiatry that would secure a better future, which is what I am hoping to provide through this book, by exploring a role for the application of new informatics technology. It has already proven to be helpful in several other medical specialties, as well as in many aspects of our daily life. I recognize that employing information technology is not the only path for the future, but certainly it is one of the few paths that has demonstrated its positive potential. Though it is a path that has never been fully explored, it has already contributed many benefits to medicine. I have to admit that when I started composing the manuscript for this book, it was with my eyes wide open to the low interest among psychiatrists to incorporate technological advances in the practice of psychiatry, and the erroneous excuse of losing empathic psychiatry. This excuse is basically erroneous, as information technology is just a tool that can proceed, with all its algorithms, under full human control.

      Now, as I complete this book manuscript, I have no hesitation in strongly recommending a path of modern informatics as a potentially strong approach to better secure the future of psychiatry. I am truly gratified by the recent decision this spring by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada to endorse its council recommendations concerning the integration of information technology and digital approaches in medicine, as well as specialty training. To me, it is more than just an important endorsement for mapping the future of medicine, but also a vote of confidence and validation for my early choice of such an important topic as the central theme of this book.

      The book is organized in three main parts; Part A deals with the many aspects of the evolving subject of information technology, which has given the book its title. Recognizing the low interest of this topic among psychiatrists, as documented in one of the chapters, I attempted to simplify the provision of the various complex technological information available. I, myself, have to admit that I do not possess high technological knowledge or skills, but I am approaching complex technological issues from the perspective of a clinician and neuroscientist. The first few chapters document the successful story of developing a Covid-19 vaccine in a relatively short time, based on the use of the new science of mRNA and information technology, that includes artificial intelligence and big data analytics. These major successful scientific and medical technologies gave me the clear notion of whether such an effective and expedient approach could be applicable to psychiatry in moving rapidly to a more secure future. Part A also includes a summary of the development and application of the new pharmacogenomic information already accessible and its potential contribution to the development of precise psychiatry, matching treatment to the individual patient at the right time. At the end of Part A, I provide my response to the big question: Can artificial intelligence and big data save the future of psychiatry? My answer is yes, I think it can.

      Part B includes a number of clinical and controversial challenges grouped under two headings that include phenomenological and nosological challenges and clinical controversies, based on my long clinical and academic practices. The topics covered include the recent development in neurology of the new discipline of behavioural neurology and the challenge of neuropsychiatry, and the subjective/objective dichotomy in psychiatry. Other clinical challenges and controversies include topics such as loneliness and its role as a silent and invisible disorder, and the reemergence of psychedelic drugs and their future in psychiatry and several other clinical challenges.

      Part C provides conclusions, selected bibliography and a postscript that was hastily included, as a tribute to the memory of Professor Thomas Arthur Ban. Tom, as he preferred to be called, who sadly died recently, in February of this year, was a major loss of a genuine and dear friend. He was a pioneer of the science of modern neuropsychopharmacology and a true humanist who cared and helped many others.

      Overall, I am delighted to share my thoughts with the readers towards the goal of creating a conversation that can further the

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1