Can a holistic view facilitate the development of intelligent traditional Chinese medicine? A survey

Intelligent traditional Chinese medicine (ITCM) is an emerging interdisciplinary subject. It aims to efficiently and precisely promote the prevention and treatment of diseases and health management in Chinese medicine clinical practice via the combination of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) fundamentals and artificial intelligence technologies. Presently, it is experiencing dramatic growth in recent years. On the one hand, a holistic view, as a crucial philosophy in the theory of TCM, will be guiding the development of ITCM. On the other hand, a comprehensive discussion of the benefits of such a holistic view of ITCM is lacking. To this end, we conduct this survey by introducing the named holistic view first. Then, adaptive learning and field theory will be presented and discussed with respect to their application in ITCM. Ethical issues of ITCM will then be taken into account by human-centered TCM and potentials based on affective computing of ITCM. In addition, we give our opinions and insights on the challenges and open issues regarding the future of ITCM. We hope that this survey article can be a good guide for experts in the relevant fields.