title: Connectionist expert systems as medical decision aid.
abstract: In this paper neural networks are used as associative memories to build an expert system for aiding medical diagnosis. As in expert systems using symbolic manipulation, the knowledge is introduced by a knowledge engineer using a collection of known cases. The system has an object-oriented approach to knowledge organization and the resulting network topology. Fuzzy sets are used to interpret connection values and/or excitation state of the units. The main result is that the proposed neural network allows not only finding a solution in some cases, but also suggests obtaining more clinical data if the data available is insufficient to reach a conclusion. This approach is illustrated by examples.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Neurophysiology, Faculty of Medicine, Catholic University of Louvain (UCL), Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Barreto
authors.forename: F M
authors.initials: FM
authors.lastname: de Azevedo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D003936:Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008180:Lupus Erythematosus, Systemic / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016571:Neural Networks, Computer