Necessity of noise in physiology and medicine

Noise is omnipresent in biomedical systems and signals. Conventional views assume that its presence is detrimental to systems' performance and accuracy. Hence, various analytic approaches and instrumentation have been designed to remove noise. On the contrary, recent contributions have shown that noise can play a beneficial role in biomedical systems. The results of this literature review indicate that noise is an essential part of biomedical systems and often plays a fundamental role in the performance of these systems. Furthermore, in preliminary work, noise has demonstrated therapeutic potential to alleviate the effects of various diseases. Further research into the role of noise and its applications in medicine is likely to lead to novel approaches to the treatment of diseases and prevention of disability. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.