Machine Intelligence in Clinical Neuroscience: Taming the Unchained Prometheus

The democratization of machine learning (ML) through availability of open-source learning libraries, the availability of datasets in the "big data" era, increasing computing power even on mobile devices, and online training resources have both led to an explosion in applications and publications of ML in the clinical neurosciences, but has also enabled a dangerous amount of flawed analyses and cardinal methodological errors committed by benevolent authors. While powerful ML methods are nowadays available to almost anyone and can be applied after just few minutes of familiarizing oneself with these methods, that does not imply that one has mastered these techniques. This textbook for clinicians aims to demystify ML by illustrating its methodological foundations, as well as some specific applications throughout clinical neuroscience, and its limitations. While our mind can recognize, abstract, and deal with the many uncertainties in clinical practice, algorithms cannot. Algorithms must remain tools of our own mind, tools that we should be able to master, control, and apply to our advantage in an adjunctive manner. Our hope is that this book inspires and instructs physician-scientists to continue to develop the seeds that have been planted for machine intelligence in clinical neuroscience, not forgetting their inherent limitations.