Health as a Determinant of Happiness

 Health as a Determinant of Happiness

Does health equal happiness? Although this is a complex proposition, the answer might not be as convoluted as we think.  Individuals who experience happiness also encounter positive affect, which refers to “the extent to which an individual subjectively experiences positive moods such as joy, interest, and alertness” (Miller). According to Rebecca Alexander’s article “The neuroscience of positive emotions and affect: Implications for cultivating happiness and wellbeing,” positive affect correlates to prosperity in numerous aspects of life, one of which being physical health.  

In 2012, the United Nations compiled the first World Happiness Report, which compared countries to a mean global level of happiness.  Geographical areas and countries who scored above the average on this report, such as North America, Western Europe, and New Zealand, tend to be more developed countries with more wealth. Those who scored below the average, such as areas like Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, tend to be developing countries who are less wealthy. In terms of predictors of a community’s health, income/wealth is one of the highest socioeconomic factors on the list, which would suggest that areas that scored higher also have better health outcomes.  

Why do wealthier nations tend to have better health outcomes? One answer is universal healthcare.  Wealthier nations have the money, resources, and professional workers to offer healthcare to all of their citizens, whether they are employed or not.  Countries like Japan, Germany, Switzerland, and Canada have constructed healthcare systems that offer a wide range of services for very limited cost to the consumer, while the rest is subsidized by taxes and the government.  The United States is an outlier compared to other wealthy countries; they are the only wealthy, more developed country who does not consider healthcare to be a right, and thus does not offer it to their citizens. The US healthcare system is actually more similar to the healthcare systems of developing countries, where the wealthy and elite can get all the healthcare they need, while the poor/middle to lower class can only get the healthcare they can afford, which in some cases is none. It’s no surprise that healthier countries that offer universal care tend to be happier, where medical bankruptcy is unheard of and people receive the care they need. 

Alexander, Rebecca. “The Neuroscience of Positive Emotions and Affect: Implications for Cultivating Happiness and Wellbeing.” Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, Pergamon, 8 Dec. 2020, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763420306801?via%3Dihub.

Cui, Xiaodong, and Ching-Ter Chang. “How Income Influences Health: Decomposition Based on Absolute Income and Relative Income Effects.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 13 Oct. 2021, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8535401/

Miller, David N. “Positive Affect.” SpringerLink, Springer US, https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-0-387-79061-9_2193#citeas

Artificial Intelligence and Brain-Computer Interfaces - A Pair to Remember

In the 21st century, the state of modern medicine is rapidly taking its course, using the most updated technologies to improve treatment and the overall condition of patients. One of these ultra-modern techniques are Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs). Broadly speaking, BCIs translate the electrical activity of the brain into the physical movement of, say, a robotic limb. In order to investigate how the technology can be best utilized in a healthcare context, Dr. Samejima, Dr. Khorasani, and other scientists explored the positive effect BCIs have on spinal cord injury (SCI), and more specifically, how they could recover limb function in affected patients. The study discusses utilizing rat models, which were handled through spinal surgery. The “implementation” of an SCI allowed researchers to test the effects of BCI. Results showed that the BCI interface improved the forelimb function of all rats in the experimental group (Samejima et al., 2021). 

Extending upon this study and ones similar to it, the new boundary that is being pushed for patient treatment is the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) as a mediator between the BCI and the human. One such study is done by Zhang et al. and is titled The combination of brain-computer interfaces and artificial intelligence: applications and challenges. Here, it is stated that, in the past, scientists were unable to distinguish between a person’s intentions from general electrical activity in the brain to match it to the robotic arm (Zhang et al., 2020). This is where AI comes in, acting as an assistant and aiding humans in their ability to analyze neural activity. 

Similar to the formerly mentioned study, Zhang et al. dives into the potential for limb rehabilitation using AI, which would likely allow for unprecedented quickness in decoding signals and therefore improvement in the patient’s condition and percentage of limb function recovery. Along with this, other fields that can look for improvements with the implementation of AI are user cursor control, somatosensation and feedback, auditory restoration, and even optical prosthetics. 

The study concludes by stating that AI’s biggest impact on BCI treatment is “the ability to achieve real-time or near-real-time modulation of training parameters and subsequent adjustments in response to active real-time feedback” (Zhang et al., 2020). Overall, with such a wide range of uses, this tandem of highly advanced technologies should benefit the medical field for eons to come. With this field being highly and thoroughly researched in the recent past, the trend will continue at a potentially greater rate and lead to more flushed-out applications to improve the way humans deliver healthcare.

References:

Samejima, S., Khorasani, A., Ranganathan, V., Nakahara, J., Tolley, N. M., Boissenin, A., Shalchyan, V., Daliri, M. R., Smith, J. R., & Moritz, C. T. (2021). Brain-Computer-spinal interface restores upper limb function after spinal cord injury. IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, 29, 1233–1242. https://doi.org/10.1109/tnsre.2021.3090269

Zhang, X., Ma, Z., Zheng, H., Li, T., Chen, K., Wang, X., Liu, C., Xu, L., Wu, X., Lin, D., & Lin, H. (2020). The combination of brain-computer interfaces and Artificial Intelligence: Applications and challenges. Annals of Translational Medicine, 8(11), 712–712. https://doi.org/10.21037/atm.2019.11.109 

Artifical Intelligence: Why should you care?

 

    In his talk titled "Can Silicon Be Conscious?" Dr. Vukov posed a fundamental question to the audience: What defines personhood? Dr. Joe Vukov, a professional philosopher, undertook a personal exploration to unravel this question. As part of this quest, he engaged in a conversation with Blake Lemoine, a former leader involved in the development of Google's AI LaMDA, alongside his colleague Michael Burns. This insightful discussion unfolded on the podcast "Appleseeds to Apples: Catholicism and The Next ChaptGPT." Dr. Vukov and Dr. Burns guided the discourse towards the inquiry of the AI's potential sentience, the essence of personhood, and the ethical considerations that would arise if the AI were acknowledged as sentient. Blake Lemoine notably asserted that the Google AI LaMDA, specifically designed for dialogue applications, could indeed be considered sentient. In order to explain how advanced the AI is, Dr. Vukov informed the audience about the Turing Test, this test was developed as a method to see if an AI can effectively communicate to the observer that the sender of the messages is also a human. If an AI can convince the receiver that would mean that the AI has passed the Turing test. However, this brought up the argument that is tricking a human into thing that the AI is human really enough to consider the AI to have personhood? Blake Lemoine argues that in the past humans have made the mistake of dehumanizing people of color and women. Since humans have a bad history of impeding on the rights of those that should not, it makes the most sense to give AI some rights as well. However, Many argue AI systems have access to all of the resources on the internet, making its “mind” limitless. However,regurgitating the information on the internet to humans really makes AI as complex as a human?  Many people are convinced that it does not. 

    In their study, "Protecting Sentient Artificial Intelligence: A Survey of Lay Intuitions on Standing, Personhood, and General Legal Protection," Dr. Eric Martinez and Dr. Christoph Winter aimed to explore public opinions on AI rights. They sought to understand what the public thought about extending legal protection to sentient AI and what they perceived as personhood. The results were somewhat surprising, with participants ranking desired legal protection for AI lower than other groups (humans in the jurisdiction, humans outside the jurisdiction, corporations, unions, non-human animals, the environment, humans living in the near future, and humans living in the far future), indicating a perceived lesser importance. However, the desired protection level for AI was significantly higher than its perceived current protection, suggesting a nuanced concern for AI's legal status. About one-third of participants endorsed granting personhood and standing to sentient AI, either aligning with or deviating from legal expert opinions. Political differences emerged, with liberals advocating higher legal protection and personhood for AI than conservatives. Both political groups, however, showed lower favorability towards legal protection for AI compared to other neglected groups. The findings also prompt considerations for potential reforms in existing legal systems, with a democratic lens on lay attitudes influencing legal philosophy and policy. The study's descriptive focus emphasizes the importance of further research to draw normative implications from the results within the evolving landscape of AI ethics and law.

    AI is an inevitable part of the future, thus people should increasingly become more involved with the ethical implications of AI. With artificial intelligence offering a bright prospect for numerous fields, it becomes even more logical for us to closely monitor its developments.

Andreotta A. J. (2021). The Hard Problem of AI Rights. AI Soc. 36, 19–32. 10.1007/s00146-020-00997-x [PMC free article] [PubMed] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]

Martínez, E., & Winter, C. (2021). Protecting Sentient Artificial Intelligence: A Survey of Lay Intuitions on Standing, Personhood, and General Legal Protection. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2021.788355

Effects of Night Shifts on Circadian Rhythms

Understanding and Eliminating Bias in the Realm of Artificial Intelligence

    When the words "Artifical Intelligence" come to mind, most of us probably think of ChatGPT or robots. However, when taking a closer look, we find that artificial intelligence is all around us, Siri, Google, Alexa. Everyday, household objects that most of us don't think twice about utlize AI. Understanding what AI really is is a key step to realizing how engrained artificial inteligence is in our everyday life. Aritifcial intelligence, also referred to as AI, is described as a branch of computer science in which machines are built and programmed to create decisions that attempt to replicate human decisions and intelligence. A common method of programming used in AI is machine learning. Machine learning is a technique that AI utilizes that involves analyzing large compliments of data that allows it to make predictions and over time, the AI is able to improve based on its previous experience. 

    In an interview, Joe Vukov and Michael Burns sit down with artificial intelligence expert and former google researcher, Blake Lemoine, to discuss AI and AI bias. Blake Lemoine explains that AI often utilizes machine learning, and while there might not be any distinguishable bias in the data set that the AI is using to make predictions and decisions, there is often some level of bias within the data or the pattterns that the AI is able to pick out through learning. Additionally, Blake Lemoine tells Joe Vukov and Michael Burns about how difficult it can be to determine what exactly is causing the bias in the first place, along with out to eradicate it, especially as we know that our society is full of bias. Lemoine follows this up by pointing out how many companies that utilize AI do not want to admit that their AI is biased or can be biased, as it opens them up to extreme liabilities and pinpointing the issues causing the bias(es) can be very costly and take a lot of time, thus, it is much easier for companies to ignore the possibility of their AI being biased instead of solving and eliminating these biases.

    In a recent article, Veronika Shestakova examines bias in the area of artificial intelligence and what exactly can be done to limit this bias. After explaining a general overview of AI along with how an AI model that specifically uses machine learning develops and goes through it's various 'life stages', Veronika dives into the different types of biases that may be encountered. The biases Veronika Shestakova talks about include historical bias, representation bias, measurement bias, aggregation bias, evaluation bias, and deployment bias. These different biases all present themselves in different ways through different means throughout an AI's learning and life cycle. Shestakova discusses how bias already exists in our world today, and thus does exist in the data that AI uses to learn. Additionally, Veronika Shestakova continues to explain different methodology and techniques we should use to limit AI bias, such as developing criteria or a test to determine if an AI is possibly biased, along with emphasizing the importance of humans taking a step back and analyzing the output/decisions that the AI makes to insure the results from the AI are not biased or skewed. 

    While biases are all around us and it is unlikely that we will be able to completely eradicate bias in our society and in artificial intelligence, it is still extremely beneficial to examine AI and it's decision making in order to eliminate and lessen biases. It is especially important that humans take time to completely evaluate AI output when it is being used to determine decisions that can be high-risk, such as preference/order in which patients get immediate medical care and which patients are able to wait if a large amount of patients were to show up to an ER at once. While discussions about AI and it's possibilities to expand and control more of the world are common, at this current state in science, AI and it's decision making capabilities are only as good as the scientists and engineers create it to be along with the data the AI uses to learn and develop. This signifies an even greater importance of work that researchers must do to mitigate biases in AI.

    

References:

Appleseeds to Apples. Nexus Journal. (n.d.). https://www.hanknexusjournal.com/appleseedstoapples

Shestakova, Veronika. “Best Practices to Mitigate Bias and Discrimination in Artificial Intelligence.” Performance Improvement (International Society for Performance Improvement), vol. 60, no. 6, 2021, pp. 6–11, https://doi.org/10.1002/pfi.21987.

Circadian Rhythm and Cancer

How do you cure cancer? Cancer has been a hot topic for many years in the scientific community and for those who have been impacted by this disease personally or know a loved one who has been impacted by it.  Cancer is a disease in which cells grow at an uncontrollable rate and they can cause damage to the body, it can even spread from its point of origin and destroy other parts of the body. It is caused by changes in the gene that can impact the way cells divide and grow. While so much about the disease has been learned and new treatment options are available for those who are diagnosed with this disease, unfortunately, cancer is still one of the leading causes of death in America. This is why many research efforts are being put towards learning more about this disease to create better treatment options for patients and to hopefully one day find a cure. 

The circadian rhythm has been a topic of interest regarding cancer. The circadian rhythm is the body’s biological clock, it follows the earth’s 24 hours. It is in every cell of our body, which goes to show just how important it is. However, the disruption of this circadian rhythm has been linked to increased susceptibility to other diseases, like cancer for example. In a world with technology and electricity, it has become more and more easier to disregard our body’s circadian clock and go to sleep and wake up whenever we please and not get the sleep that we need. Dr. Fred Turek and Dr. Summa have investigated the correlation between cancer and the circadian rhythm. While the exact reason for disrupting your circadian rhythm has not been confirmed, there has been growing evidence that when our circadian rhythms are disrupted, they can affect the pathways that are responsible for how our cells grow and divide, which we know if that has been impacted, then cells can grow uncontrollably and become cancer. Knowing this information, researchers are trying to figure out the specifics of how a disrupted circadian rhythm may lead to cancer on a molecular level. If we know how this happens on a molecular level then there can be new drugs or treatments that can be created to target this and be a new cancer treatment for people. 

Knowing how a disrupted circadian rhythm may be linked to cancer, what can we do with this new information while we wait to see if new treatments can be developed? Well, according to the article by Lydia Denworth, “Adjusting Your Body Clock May Stave Off Cancer” we can use this information to lower the risk of cancer. This article talks about how disrupting the circadian rhyme can increase your risk of cancer while resetting it can lower the risk. There have been studies that show that night-shift workers are linked to a disrupted circadian rhythm and cancer.  But you don’t have to be a night shift worker to have a disrupted circadian rhythm, just not getting a good night’s sleep can cause a disruption as well. This could mean waking up for a few hours between 10 PM and 5 AM once a week. When the circadian rhythm is disrupted, it has an impact on metabolic pathways, immune function, and DNA repair. Knowing the link between the circadian rhythm and diseases, chemotherapy treatments have shown to be more effective when they are given in line with a person’s circadian rhythm, and other drugs are being researched to see if they have the same effect as well. While late-night workers may not be going away, there has been research as to how to reduce the impact of the disruption of the circadian rhythm on these people. For those who don’t work late at night, prioritizing sleep can make a positive impact by reducing the risk of cancer. Even changing eating habits in line with our circadian rhythm has been an area of research as well. But by not disrupting the circadian rhythm, it can reduce our risk of cancer. 

While there is still more research to be done about the circadian rhythm and its link to cancer, it provides us with another path to solving the age-old question of how to cure cancer. 

References:

1. “What Is Cancer?” National Cancer Institute, 11 Oct. 2021,

             www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/understanding/what-is-cancer.

2. “Cancer Deaths - Health, United States.” Www.cdc.gov, 11 Aug. 2022, www.cdc.gov/nchs/hus/topics/cancer-deaths.htm.

3. ‌Summa, K.C., and Turek, F. W. Circadian desynchrony and health.   

4. Denworth, Lydia. “Adjusting Your Body Clock May Stave off Cancer.” Scientific American, 1 July 2023, www.scientificamerican.com/article/adjusting-your-body-clock-may-stave-off-cancer/. Accessed 2 Mar. 2024.

Concerns of AI in Healthcare

  The rise of AI on all platforms has not come without concern. Using AI in healthcare has a multitude of concerns. The use of AI to handle patient data has become very common in the healthcare space. The question arises, is this ethical? The issue with using AI in patient records is if it is still upholding patient confidentiality. AI, though convenient also has its fair share of setbacks, one of those being it is easy to hack into. So,  storing patients' personal health records using AI leaves them susceptible to being hacked, thus breaking the patient confidentiality that all patients have the right to. 

Despite this setback, the use of AI can be really helpful in the healthcare process. It has been used now to analyze patient data, as well as form treatment plans. This process allows for the patient to have more time with their healthcare provider and less of a wait time to get results or treatment options. Telemedicine has also been used heavily since the rise of COVID-19, making healthcare accessible from home instead of having to leave home.  AI also allows for quicker progress on the administrative side of healthcare, it helps with the research and understanding of filing patient data. 

    The rise of AI in healthcare has both its ups and downs. There is no telling if the pros outweigh the cons or vice versa.  Using AI has to come with some type of caution, one solution could be leaving out super confidential information if using AI in patient records, to still protect patient confidentiality. The use of AI is crucial in furthering the healthcare system and making it the most efficient for all patients. 

References:

Moore, Sarah. “Ethical Considerations in AI-Driven Healthcare.” News, 6 Nov. 2023, www.news-medical.net/health/Ethical-Considerations-in-AI-Driven-Healthcare.aspx#:~:text=There%20are%20a%20number%20of,data%20breaches%20and%20unauthorized%20access.