today I would like to present you not so fresh medical article, but still very interesting. Today will be about pigeons and their remarkable ability to distinguish benign from malignant human breast histopathology after training with differential food reinforcement. I know that it may sound scary but it is not :-).
Ariticle:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0141357
Questions:
- What do you think about using animals in this way?
- What do you think about authors experiment in context of today's technology like medical imaging? Can animals may be better then humans?
- Do you know any other way animals can help in discovering cancer or any other disease (I am not thinking about experiments on animals)?
Tomek
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ReplyDeleteI think that, unlike animal experiments, the attempt to teach the pigeon interpretation of the various presented data is very interesting. However, what would it give us ? I do not know ! In the final result, human must make the final decision. On the other hand, man will have less data to process if earlier pigeons make data segregation.
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Scientific experiment very interesting. Same idea is very interesting. But in my opinion animals, for egzample pigeons, will not be able to replace a human and certainly not be better to making decisions when that is important for other people's lives.
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Unfortunately, I don't know other methods, where animals can help in the detection of cancer or other diseases, because I am not very interested medicine.
Yes you are right, pigeons or any other animal is not able to make final decision (same is with AI). But we can use their knowledge to help our decisions, sometimes you can overlook some detail and with additional help probability is getting lower.
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ReplyDeleteI believe that any new method for diagnosing cancer is necessary. It does not matter if the diagnostic tool is an animal or a medical device. However, it is important that this method should have as few false-negative results as possible. Animals have worked for humans since time immemorial. Working as a cancer cell detector is easy.
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No. Proficiency in the field of medical imaging is based on large experience and extensive medical knowledge. Knowledge and experience allow people to draw correct conclusions. Animals do not have experience or medical knowledge. In the article, pigeons base their decisions on indicators, which are calculated from the morphological properties of the images.
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Several authors have published research suggesting that dogs may be able to detect lung, breast, prostate, ovarian, and melanoma cancers by smelling skin lesions, urine, exhaled breath, and surgically extracted tumors.
Andrzej Kawiak
Ad1. I dodn't agree with you in the last statement "Working as a cancer cell detector is easy." from what I know accuracy in cancer cell detection even for very experienced doctor is no so very high and usually takes a lot of time, very often AI is better and faster then human.
DeleteAd2. Artificial Networks do not have medical experienced also and people want to use them as their oracle.
Ad3. I didn't know that, that is interesting. Thanks.
1. What do you think about using animals in this way?
ReplyDeleteThere are some enthusiast and vegans that are crazy when in comes to any usage of animals not only for testing but for anything in general. Personally I do not have any problems with that because any solution bringing us closer to solutions in medical problems are good. However I would not consider it as the best way, since for sure there are some other, more sure and secure ways.
2. What do you think about authors experiment in context of today's technology like medical imaging? Can animals may be better then humans?
It is hard to say and as I said above I am a little bit distant from saying that this should be the only or main method for fighting with cancer. I guess this might generate some material of how animals are doing it to work further on. Later there might be used AI and some algorithms that will use machine learning and animals will no longer be needed.
3. Do you know any other way animals can help in discovering cancer or any other disease (I am not thinking about experiments on animals)?
I found few examples: mice identify the faces of infected ducks with strain of avian flu, rats — specifically, giant African pouched rats — could successfully be used to identify a tuberculosis infection, According to research from Italy, the fruit flies react to the scents of certain cancer cells with changes in their antenna. Further, the study found that fruit flies can differentiate between different types of cancers, and even between different types of breast cancers.
1. In generally from what I see (when it comes to experiments in any form on animals) that people after visiting hospital lab or pharmaceutical lab, can change their opinion in a matter of seconds - but this is just my observation.
Delete2. Yes you are right, but when we have a lot of different opinions on one subject, sometimes is easier for us to make proper decision.
3. Cool, I know some of them, fine examples.
1. What do you think about using animals in this way?
ReplyDeleteIt's great idea! Pigeons are cheap and safety for people. Besides, they do not get hurt. Everyone should be satisfy of this solution.
2. What do you think about authors experiment in context of today's technology like medical imaging? Can animals may be better then humans?
We don't really know how radiation affects us. The animal are safer. Furthermore the cost of using animal would be lower.
3. Do you know any other way animals can help in discovering cancer or any other disease (I am not thinking about experiments on animals)?
I heard about dogs which sniff people and recognize disease (including cancer), but I don't know details.
Yes I agree with you in 100%. :D Yeah dogs are amazing :D they can sniff a lot of stuff.
Delete1. What do you think about using animals in this way?
ReplyDeleteI think it's a good idea. In general, I'm enthusiastic about all kinds of experiments that bring us closer to find cures for all fatal and incurable diseases, as long as nobody, and in this instance the animals in particular, gets hurt.
2. What do you think about authors experiment in context of today's technology like medical imaging? Can animals may be better then humans?
No animal can really replace a human being, but I cannot imagine experimenting with unknown or with things that can have bad side effects on people.
3. Do you know any other way animals can help in discovering cancer or any other disease (I am not thinking about experiments on animals)?
I heard that dogs feel when somebody is ill and that they lie their head on ill parts on human's body or near it. But I'm not sure if it's true or not.
1. I can agree with that.
ReplyDelete2. We are also animals :D. More intelligent that is true but still we are animals.
3. Yes, that's the truth I saw it somewhere, but I can't remember where.
1. What do you think about using animals in this way?
ReplyDeleteThe presented results are very interesting. I believe that the use of animals in science can enable us to make many discoveries. In this case, it doesn't harm the pigeons, but can help save human lives.
2. What do you think about authors experiment in context of today's technology like medical imaging? Can animals may be better then humans?
We will never be completely sure how animals perceive the world. It is therefore difficult to answer this question. I think people should do independent research to allow us to see what may be obvious to some animals, such as pigeons in this case.
3. Do you know any other way animals can help in discovering cancer or any other disease (I am not thinking about experiments on animals)?
I read that fruit flies may be able to detect cancer. According to research from Italy, the fruit flies react to the scents of certain cancer cells with changes in their antenna. Further, the study found that fruit flies can differentiate between different types of cancers, and even between different types of breast cancers.
Yes, I also think that we should learn some things from animal world and we should cooperate with them without harming them. Maybe later we can learn something more how they can perceive the world.
DeleteWhat do you think about using animals in this way?
ReplyDeleteI think that using animals in this way could be only be for curiosity and experiment but not for real medical diagnosis. I think that we have better ways to distinguish benign from malignant human breast histopathology. Animals could be wrong and it is hard to recognize when and why.
What do you think about authors experiment in context of today's technology like medical imaging? Can animals may be better then humans?
I do not think so. In this case technology is better because pigeons can be easily influenced by other factors and make wrong diagnosis. Well designed algorithms still may be wrong but there results are more reliable.
Do you know any other way animals can help in discovering cancer or any other disease (I am not thinking about experiments on animals)?
I have heard about dogs that can smell if their owners have cancer, but I don't know any scientific experiments about that.
Humans can be wrong also, evens doctors don't have 100% accuracy in giving you a proper diagnose :-). When it comes to algorithms, still we have got one big problem and this is lack of data, usually ANN can be much better then doctor but we have to remember that little programmer mistake can be terrible.
Delete1. What do you think about using animals in this way?
ReplyDeleteI am not convinced about the usefulness of such a solution. I agree with the opinion that the final decision must be made by a man anyway. In spite of the fact that the article presents some interesting possibilities of using pigeons in recognizing images, although each of them comes down to the final verification by a human being.
2. What do you think about authors experiment in context of today's technology like medical imaging? Can animals may be better then humans?
Although the results of the research are surprising to me, I still think that this is not the way we should take. In my opinion, the use of artificial intelligence in diagnosing medical images can be more effective and reliable. Animals can be better than people but only on motor issues, certainly not cognitive-intellectual. Of course, that's just my personal feelings.
3. Do you know any other way animals can help in discovering cancer or any other disease (I am not thinking about experiments on animals)?
Unfortunately, I do not know such examples and I have no ideas how to use animals in discovering cancer or any other disease. I think about cats that sense human illness but it is a well-known fact. On the other hand I am impressed by the examples cited by Cezary. Fruit flies - who would have thought... really surprising.
1. Yes when it comes to final decision even with ANN there must be human involved.
Delete2. I see that everybody loves AI :D. Is ANN reliable, maybe. When I am conducting experiments and when I am talking with other people from Deep Learning field, we summarize Machine Learning field especially Deep Learning as black box. We have got nice results but no one knows how this works :-).
It's very interesting finding that pigeons are capable of memorization of such number of images and even of a generalization. I also started to wonder if properties of pigeons' vision like different sensitivity to light should be taken into consideration in image preprocessing for classification tasks. As for direct, practical use of that finding, I don't see any. Also, authors aren't clear about it, they mention image quality assurance, but I'm not convinced.
ReplyDeleteIn the context of this particular experiment, it's clear that animals can't be better than humans in this task as they, for example, weren't able to generalize on radiology images. However, I don't know about other diseases and animals that can detect them. I can imagine that there may be animals that are ultra-sensitive to specific symptoms or maybe can detect a particular kind of bacteria. In such situations, they probably can be better than human or even a technology used by humans.
Yes when it comes to first paragraph you are right. When it comes to second yes and no. By yes I mean that animals aren't able to generalize. An No stands for that, that we don't know all species so maybe somewhere there is one which can generalize.
DeleteWhat do you think about using animals in this way?
ReplyDeleteI think that this is a great idea - it is the use of animals like any other - in the police, army, search and as a guide.
What do you think about authors experiment in context of today's technology like medical imaging? Can animals may be better then humans?
I'm not interested in this topic very much. but after reading the article - not necessarily better than people, but different. They can be used as a huge help. And they can support people.
Do you know any other way animals can help in discovering cancer or any other disease (I am not thinking about experiments on animals)?
Once I saw a TV program where dogs were able - on the human body to identify areas where there were cancer cells - dogs went through training where they worked on samples (for a prize like a ball or a treat) - AMazing :)
Thanks for your answer.
DeleteDear Tomasz,
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for interesting article. I’ve started thinking lately, that my 11 year old son becomes really crazy about pigeons, but now I can see it must be something in it :-) He has many books about them, he feeds them, observes and writes blog about them :-)
Coming to your questions:
1. I think, in those experiments the animals are not used inappropriately. They don’t suffer in any way, what’s more they are very useful, so I am totally for engaging them in such projects.
2. Everybody knows that humans are not infallible. Of course, I don’t want to say, that we can compare animal to people in respect of analyzing and drawing conclusions. Animals cannot replace humans in making important decisions, like diagnosis and medical treatment. But such crazy ways of using all available possibilities to heal incurable diseases can be our chance to go forward in this respect. We cannot forget about that – if traditional methods fail, then we should think about something else. Maybe pigeons.
3. Animals can help with many medical treatments. One of the most crucial way of realizing strong bond between animal and people is animal-assisted therapy, because animals are accepting, non-threatening and non-judgmental, making it easier for people to open up.
After intense treatments like targeted therapy, hormone therapy, immunotherapy, radiation therapy and chemotherapy, patients can experience an extremely low phase. This can make them feel disinterested in social interactions, physical activities or in life itself. There can be a decline in spiritual and psychological well-being, and patients can sometimes feel unable to cope with daily life.
The diseases, in which such assistance is used, are the following:
1) Autism spectrum disorders
2) Addiction
3) Cancer
4) Heart disease
5) Dementia
6) Developmental disorders
7) Psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia
8) Emotional and behavioral disorders
9) Chronic pain
. The main benefits of animal-assisted therapy include:
1) Improved fine motor skills
2) Improved balance
3) Increased focus and attention
4) Increased self-esteem and ability to care for oneself
5) Reduced anxiety, grief and isolation
6) Reduced blood pressure, depression, and risk of heart attack or stroke
7) Improved willingness to be involved in a therapeutic program or group activity
8) Increased trust, empathy and teamwork
9) Greater self-control
10) Enhanced problem-solving skills
11) Reduced need for medication
12) Improved social skills.
Best regards :-)
Thank you for different answer, it was really nice to read it, especially point number three, I must say that I was not aware of number of diseases in which animal assistance can be used, real cool. You son have a great hobby, maybe someday he will get his private pigeon :D.
Delete1 .What do you think about using animals in this way?
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion is great that animals doens not get hurt in the process.
2. What do you think about authors experiment in context of today's technology like medical imaging? Can animals may be better then humans?
Topic it self seems to be really interesting, but medical research is not my major field of intrest. Still it was really entertainig the get possiblity to read about this.
3. Do you know any other way animals can help in discovering cancer or any other disease (I am not thinking about experiments on animals)?
In general I'm not monitoring medical reaserch or science development in this filed, but still this is really important an many depends on this.
Thanks for your answer.
DeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think about using animals in this way?
In my opinion we have to use animals to test some kind of medical solution. I know it is not fair to test some kind of medications on them but - do we have a choice? There were thousands of tests and we are still defenseless in the fight against cancer. There are a thousands of people (children!) that are waiting for breakthrough. They want to test even the methods that can kill them faster than cancer.
What do you think about authors experiment in context of today's technology like medical imaging? Can animals may be better then humans?
In my opinion animals are not better for tests due to lower costs. They are more predictable, do not lie. They are obedient, and will not say - sorry but I get bored and I am leave this experiment (even if they think so).
Do you know any other way animals can help in discovering cancer or any other disease (I am not thinking about experiments on animals)?
Animals and whole nature are base for our ideas. Most of technology (for instance aviation) is based on nature observations. I do not know how they can help us to discover a cancer.
We always have a choice. We can test drugs and other stuff on killers, they did something to others and now they have to give back something to society (I don't believe in resocialization, but this discussion for another time).
Delete1. What do you think about using animals in this way?
ReplyDeleteIt is difficult to answer this question. I think animals can help us fight disease. The main thing is that they don't get hurt. New drugs require tests that can negatively affect animals. Unfortunately, it carries a risk of sacrifice. I have mixed feelings about using animals in experiments.
2.What do you think about authors experiment in context of today's technology like medical imaging? Can animals may be better then humans?
The article is very interesting. I think that important is to find a good method to detect nad fight with disease. I think that animals can support us in diagnose diseases and use this knowledge in models that detect disease. It is difficult to tell who will diagnose the disease better. Animals have some senses that are better developed, e.g. dog's sense of smell.
3. Do you know any other way animals can help in discovering cancer or any other disease (I am not thinking about experiments on animals)?
I don'tt know other methods. This is not my field of interest.
Yes, you are right in number one. After working with doctors in pharmaceutical laboratory I am totally against using animals in experiments. But I am after using animals as companions in experiments like in this case.
DeleteWhat do you think about using animals in this way?
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I think that harmful experiments on animals in people interests is not a good idea. But in our society the problem of cancer is widely spread, especially breast cancer, which is one of the most popular reasons of woman’s death. People should find the solution anyway, even if it hurts other living creatures. But if we behave in such directions we must keep balance, save the population of pigeons and provide them with comfortable living conditions.
What do you think about authors experiment in context of today’s technology like medical imaging? Can animals may be better then humans ?
Unfortunately, I don’t have any kind of medical education, so I can’t give a objective answer to this topic. In my opinion, we can’t compare humans and animal beings. To have a correct result scientists should conduct final experiments on volunteers.
Do you know any other way animals can help in discovering cancer or any other disease?
My minds are totally based on the articles I have recently read. Among the animals that are useful to human health resources I can name mice, rats and dogs. Fruit flies are helpful directly in cancer control. They react not only on cancer, but also can distinguish different types of it.
Thank you for your answer, first part was quite interesting.
Delete1) What do you think about using animals in this way?
ReplyDeleteIt is very interesting indeed. I'm a fan of such non-classical approaches as far as they are increasing chances for the win (in that case: cancer detection). I think that we should use every possible and available method that gives best results in the meantime. So, if pigeons are getting better results in diagnosis than medical staff and computer vision, let's use them!
2) What do you think about authors experiment in context of today's technology like medical imaging? Can animals may be better then humans?
I think that there is still a large field of what could be discovered by the senses that animals do have and we are not aware of. I could imagine a situation when an animal, which could see in IR (snakes) or UV (some species of birds) could be trained in searching for biomarkers that we are not yet aware of.
3) Do you know any other way animals can help in discovering cancer or any other disease (I am not thinking about experiments on animals)?
I've heard about so-called seizure alert dogs. They warn people with epilepsy of oncoming attack minutes—sometimes hours—before it occurs. This allows the person time to take seizure blocking medication, get to a safe place, or call for assistance.
Another nice answer :D. I was not aware about snakes and birds ( I must dig more about this topic). When it comes to point I saw documentary about it and I must say I was astonished about animals capabilities. Cool answer thanks.
ReplyDeleteExcellent topic! I will definitely forward this to everybody I know - finally some supervised [-machine-] learning that is not dependent on nVIDIA hardware!
ReplyDeleteI recently watched a video arguing that pigeons are actually domestic animals, which have recently relapsed into semi-wild state. Think 'dingo', in a milder version.
1. What do you think about using animals in this way?
I fully support it. There is some risk of reducing them to 'lab rats' but doctors and nurses are people, and they are in a profession which is about caring anyway. It's also cheap and possible to implement without large investments in developing countries. The limitation of this method is the life span of the animal in question (https://www.reference.com/pets-animals/average-life-span-pigeon-4326395bead35a79 - pigeon: up to 15 years in captivity), and the initial investment (training effort - every learner needs to be trained separately, and not just uploaded with the trained model via Protobuf).
2. What do you think about authors experiment in context of today's technology like medical imaging? May animals be better then humans?
Yes, they can. Humans have a trade-off between smell and vision (see http://brainrules.net/ ). It's our evolutionary legacy. The smell is very significant (it can bypass the hypothalamus to access the long term memory - the "Proust effect"), but vision is now dominant. Animals which are geared towards smell (dogs) or vision (birds, and pigeons aren't probably even the best) can have much more effective sensory perception. Some shrimps can see far wider spectrum of wavelengths than we. And it's not about missing the right equipment - we use a thermal camera to bring the long waves into the visual spectrum. Our visual spectrum - other species can see more.
3. Do you know any other way animals can help in discovering cancer or any other disease (I am not thinking about experiments on animals)?
I'm not a great zoologist, so I can't name examples beyond the usual dog licking the wounds cliche. There is probably still some untapped potential, even without getting into genetic engineering and brain-computer interfaces. Like pack animals and steeds - the artificial machinery may finally take over, but the existing possibilities should be identified and conserved for future generations.
Yes this is true it is not depended on Nvidia :D you can always try Radeon (some people try to use it).
Delete1. I thought that PHD students are lab rats (just joking).
2. Cool I am wandering if anybody conduct an experiment with shrimps :D.
I will definitely go and read article from your post. It was very nice to read it. Thank you.
Thank you for a very interesting article. Generally, animals are better observers of the world than humans. I am convinced that in many medical areas they could be useful for people. However, the use of animals in diagnostics is problematic. Firstly, who is responsible for the mistakes? It would be ideal for us to select details on which animals make accurate diagnoses. Such knowledge would allow to create tools for better imaging these factors or for automatic recognition. I do not know, maybe I'm wrong but in my opinion a significant part of the population will trust devices more than animals. You are asking for other examples. This rich content article is supported by several examples. My knowledge doesn't extend beyond the examples listed. I have heard something in the past, but I don't remember it now...
ReplyDeleteVery nice point of view. You know when it comes to mistakes is the same as situation as it is with AI. Who should be responsible for its mistake. I think time that for the time being we need to have supervisor or person which can decide what to do.
Delete1. What do you think about using animals in this way?
ReplyDeleteIt is hard for me to say clearly is it wrong or right. When it comes to talk about such serious problem like cancer treatment I have no doubts it is a good cause. Especially, in this case no animals are hurt.
2. What do you think about authors experiment in context of today's technology like medical imaging? Can animals may be better then humans?
This is a very interesting question. However, it is really hard to say if it is a good method for fighting with diseases. We can barely tell which animal is the best for a certain set of experiments.
3. Do you know any other way animals can help in discovering cancer or any other disease (I am not thinking about experiments on animals)?
Unfortunately, I am not aware of any other particular examples of such application of animals in fighting with diseases.
Ok I understand, thanks for your answer.
Delete1. What do you think about using animals in this way?
ReplyDeleteI have no objections, moral or whatsoever. As a side note, recently I lerned about Project Pigeon, lead by B.F. Skinner (of Skinner Box fame). It was about using pigeons as a guidance system inside a missile. I think pigeons would much prefer to classify medical images than to guide a missile.
All in all, animals can at most screen data, final word has to be human.
2. What do you think about authors experiment in context of today's technology like medical imaging? Can animals may be better then humans?
It depends, if we count in our tools, humans are clearly better. But without, I guess we - mammals - are pretty weak when it comes to images, because our ancestors spent quite lot of time as nocturnal animals, hiding in holes and using mainly smell. Birds don't have such evolutional bottleneck.
3. Do you know any other way animals can help in discovering cancer or any other disease (I am not thinking about experiments on animals)?
I've heard about dogs using smell sense, and cats attraction to most sick person in the hospital (but that was just about higher body temperature of sick persons).
Yes I heard about this experiment. But one of things that I really dislike are weapons, army in general, so my knowledge stops here :D.
DeleteThat is nice point, that strength of humans comes with their tools I didn't think about it in this way. Thanks and good night :D
ReplyDelete1 What do you think about using animals in this way?
I poor countries, if there is lack of equipment and doctors it may be interesting solution. Better than nothing.
2 What do you think about authors experiment in context of today's technology like medical imaging? Can animals may be better then humans?
Probably sometimes animals can be better than humans, but advantage of technology is repeatable quality of test.
I think during XXI century medical development will make technical solutions always be better.
3 Do you know any other way animals can help in discovering cancer or any other disease (I am not thinking about experiments on animals)?
No, I haven't. Moreover I think when technology is not the newest one it should be less expensive than using animals for detecting diseases.
1. I think that it is really humanitarian and respectful way of using animals. People sometimes forget that animals also have feelings amd hurt them for no reason. I my point of view it really helps to notice that they are much more valuable than we suppose.
ReplyDelete3. Animals which live in herds can distinguish the afflicted member using their smell. For example there are trained dogs, which are used to identify people who have cancer. Cancer cells produce their own smell.
What do you think about using animals in this way?
ReplyDeleteAt least this is something new. I'm still not sure how precise animals can be, but hey. Let's try that.
What do you think about authors experiment in context of today's technology like medical imaging? Can animals may be better then humans?
They can be better at very basic recognition. However, I haven't seen any articles about it, so maybe this is just a concept.
Do you know any other way animals can help in discovering cancer or any other disease (I am not thinking about experiments on animals)?
Before I read this article, I had like 0 knowledge about this topic. In my honest opinion, you need to be a bit crazy to invent something like this or you have too much money from universities and so on.
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ReplyDeleteIt is a very informative and useful post thanks it is good material to read this post increases my knowledge. Applied Mathematics
ReplyDelete