Editors of The Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine recently explored how artificial intelligence (AI) could potentially impact the field of scientific research, and how AI’s work could impact spinal cord injury (SCI) research and clinical care.

In the April article, Carolann Murphy, PA, Assistant Editor of The Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine, and Florian P. Thomas, M.D., Editor in Chief of The Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine, “posed general queries” to the GPT-4 version of Chat GPT Plus, a generative AI system. Their questions were “about the potential for generative AI to influence spinal cord research and clinical care,” the editors reported.

GPT-4 responded that generative AI “can be used to create virtual models of the human body, including the spinal cord, the musculoskeletal system, and the nervous system. These models can then be used to simulate spinal cord injury and test the effectiveness of different treatments in a more controlled and accurate environment.”

AI can also help process large sets of data, the authors said: “AI algorithms can help researchers optimize the design of spinal stimulation protocols by analyzing large amounts of data, simulating the effects of stimulation, developing personalized treatment plans, and predicting outcomes.”

The editors added that AI in the future could be used to create new drug treatments and sort through data to find suitable candidates for those treatments, and could “simulate” the effects that those drug treatments would have.

Read the story in The Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine, vol. 46, issue 3.