Progress of studies on traditional chinese medicine based on complex network analysis

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a distinct medical system that deals with the life–health–disease–environment relationship using holistic, dynamic, and dialectical thinking. However, reductionism has often restricted the conventional studies on TCM, and these studies did not investigate the ce...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:World Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine 2017-01, Vol.3 (3), p.28-37
Main Authors: Zhang, Qian-Ru, Kong, Xiang-Jun, Xu, Hai-Yu, Wang, Yi-Tao, Hu, Yuan-Jia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Complex network analysis
formula
mechanism
syndrome
traditional Chinese medicine
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Summary:Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a distinct medical system that deals with the life–health–disease–environment relationship using holistic, dynamic, and dialectical thinking. However, reductionism has often restricted the conventional studies on TCM, and these studies did not investigate the central concepts of TCM theory about the multiple relationships among life, health, disease, and environment. Complex network analysis describes a wide variety of complex systems in the real world, and it has the potential to bridge the gap between TCM and modern science owing to the holism of TCM theory. This article summarizes the current research involving TCM network analysis and highlights the computational tools and analysis methods involved in this research. Finally, to inspire a new approach, the article discussed the potential problems underlying the application of TCM network analysis.
ISSN:2311-8571
2589-2894
DOI:10.4103/wjtcm.wjtcm_7_17