Cognitive Modeling for Clinical Medicine

This paper describes some functionalities and features of the Maryland Virtual Patient (MVP) environment. MVP models the process of disease progression, diagnosis and treatment in virtual patients who are endowed with a “body,” a simulation of their physiological and pathological processes, and a “mind,” a set of capabilities of perception, reasoning and action that allow the virtual patient to exhibit independent behavior, participate in a natural language dialog, remember events, hold beliefs about other agents and about specific object and event instances, make decisions and learn.