CV for Helge Malmgren
Born 2/25/1945 in Valdemarsvik, Sweden.
Education: BA (theoretical philosophy, mathematics and theoretical physics) 1963.
PhD in theoretical philosophy, University of Gothenburg 1971, thesis: Intentionality and
Knowledge, tutor: Ivar Segelberg. Titular associate professor (docent) in theoretical
philosophy 1971. Half-time studies in medicine from 1969 to 1980. MD in 1980, registered
physician in 1983.
Earlier occupations (summary): 1965-1990 work on a part-time basis as a university teacher
in theoretical philosophy and theory of science at the universities of Göteborg, Stockholm and
Umeå. 1981-1982 full-time, and 1983-1987 part-time, work as a physician, mainly at the
psychiatric university clinics I and II in Gothenburg. 1990-2001 lecturer in theoretical
philosophy at the University of Gothenburg.
Present occupation: Since 2001, professor in theoretical philosophy at the University of
Gothenburg, with 35% time for research.
Teaching and supervision: I have taught in almost any area within philosophy and theory of
science, and my audience has often been a medical one. Main tutor for seven completed PhD
dissertations in theoretical philosophy or cognitive science between 2001 and 2008: Kent
Gustavsson (2001), Alp Öktem (2003), Fredrik Sundqvist (2003), Susanna Radovic (2005),
Jan Almäng (2007), Kristoffer Ahlström (2008), Mikael Jensen (2008). Presently main or
assisting tutor for six PhD students in theoretical philosophy, cognitive science, psychiatry
and medical informatics.
Past and current interdisciplinary research:
During the 1980s, I did research (without external funding) about the relation between
medical ethics and health economics. This work resulted in a book [1].
1984-1990 head of a joint philosophy/psychiatry project about classification and diagnosis
in organic psychiatry (mental disturbances due to brain illnesses and lesions), partly financed
by HSFR and MFR, with associate professor Göran Lindqvist (department of neurosurgery,
Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg). The main result of the project was a
comprehensive monograph on organic mental disorders ([2]; see also [3]).
1998-2000 head of an interdisciplinary project on neural networks (Artificiella Neurala
Nätverk i Informationsintensiv Sjukvård) financed mainly by KK-stiftelsen. The project
included the organization of an international conference in Gothenburg [4]. I have continued
doing research and teaching in this area, which in 2007 resulted in the first comprehensive
Swedish textbook on neural networks [8]. The book also presents the main results of my own
research about memory and memory disturbances. In this research I have cooperated closely
with a leading expert on hippocampal mechanisms (professor Holger Wigström, Gothenburg).
2000-2001 and 2003-2005 leader for the VR-supported projects Standardiserad volymetri
av hippocampus genom analys av MR-bilder med adaptiv teknik (artificiella neurala nätverk)
and Automatic segmentation and volumetry of brain structures from MRI data, with professor
Sven Ekholm (neuroradiology, now at the University of Rochester), professor Hans Knutsson
and associate professor Magnus Borga (medical informatics, Linköping University) and
others. The project has resulted in both theoretical and clinical (e.g. [9, 14, 15]), papers and is
still running with other sources. Among present partners are professor Anders Wallin
(psychiatry) and associate professor Gertrud Berg (oncology), Sahlgrenska Academy,
Gothenburg. Two PhD students are writing their theses within the project. Presently, its focus
is on manual segmentation and volumetry of the hippocampus in different clinical contexts,
but the long-term goal is the construction of a fully automated method that has the same
precision as manual segmentation. Because of this work, I am a referee for NeuroImage.
I am presently also the coordinator of two joint projects on medical decision support
systems: automatic detection of emphysema from CT images, with Magnus Borga (medical
informatics, Linköping) and professor emeritus Ulf Tylén (radiology, Sahlgrenska Academy,
Gothenburg), and computerized diagnosis of acute abdominal pain, with associate professor
Lars-Erik Hansson (surgery, Sahlgrenska Academy, Gothenburg) (cf [11, 12]). Two PhD
students are associated with the latter project.
During all my active years I have done research on philosophical and methodological
aspects of psychiatry, especially the relation between biological and psychological
explanations. I have published one book and many papers on this topic (cf. [6, 7]). Since two
years I am running a project on philosophical aspects of forensic psychiatry together with
professor Henrik Anckarsäter (forensic psychiatry, Sahlgrenska Academy, Gothenburg) and
several other philosophers and psychiatrists [13].
I am a member of The Royal Society of Arts and Sciences in Göteborg (KVVS) since 1998
and head of the Swedish Association for Philosophy and Psychiatry since 2002.
Selected publications and presentations
[1] Malmgren, H. (1990), Medicinsk Etik. En socialfilosofisk analys (Medical Ethics, in
Swedish). Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.
[2] Lindqvist, G. & Malmgren, H. (1990), Organisk Psykiatri. Teoretiska och kliniska
aspekter (Organic Psychiatry. Theoretical and clinical aspects. In Swedish.) Stockholm:
Almqvist & Wiksell.
[3] Lindqvist, G. & Malmgren, H. (1993), Classification and Diagnosis in Organic
Psychiatry. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 88, Suppl. 373
[4] Malmgren, H., Borga, M. & Niklasson, L. (eds.) (2000), Artificial Neural Networks in
Medicine and Biology. Proceedings from the ANNIMAB-1 conference. London: Springer.
[6] Malmgren, H. (2005), The theoretical basis of the biopsychosocial model. In: White, PD
Biopsychosocial Medicine: An integrated approach to understanding illness, 21-38. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
[7] Malmgren, H. (2007), Hypotesen om schizofreni som en "hjärnsjukdom" återstår att visa.
(The hypothesis that schizophrenia is a brain disease remains to be proven. In Swedish.)
Läkartidningen 204, 2152-5.
[8] Malmgren, H. (2007) Inlärning och minne i neurala nätverk (Learning and memory in
neural networks, in Swedish). Lund: Studentlitteratur.
[9] Eckerström, C., Olsson, E., Borga, M., Ekholm, S., Ribbelin, S., Rolstad, S., Starck, G.,
Edman, Å., Wallin, A. & Malmgren, H. (2008), Small baseline volume of left hippocampus
is associated with subsequent conversion of MCI into dementia. The Göteborg MCI study.
Journal of the Neurological Sciences 272, 1-2, 48-59.
[10] Malmgren, H. & Nilsson, I. (2008), Consciousness. In Darity, W.A. Jr (ed). International
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2d ed, Vol 2, 78-82. Detroit: Macmillan Reference.
[11] Åberg, M., Nalin, K., Hansson, L.-E. & H. Malmgren (2009), Towards an automatic
diagnosis system for acute abdominal pain. To be published in the proceedings from
Biosignals 2009 (Porto, Portugal).
[12] Björnsdotter Åberg, M., Nalin, K., Hansson, L.-E. & Malmgren, H. (2009), Support
vector machine diagnosis of acute abdominal pain. Communications in Computer and
Information Science (Springer), in print.
[13] Malmgren, H., Haglund, B., Thorén, H. & Radovic, S. (2009), Conceptual analysis in
forensic psychiatry. Accepted (after minor revisions) for publication in International Journal
of Law and Psychiatry.
[14] Eckerström, C., Andreasson, U., Olsson, E., Rolstad, S., Blennow, K., Zetterberg, H.,
Malmgren, H., Edman, Å. & Wallin, A. (2009), Combining hippocampal volume and
cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers improves predictive value in MCI. Submitted.
[15] Olsson, E., Eckerström, C., Berg, G., Borga, M., Ekholm, S., Johansson, K.-A.,
Johansson, G., Ribbelin, S., Starck, G., Wysocka, A., Löfdal, E. & Malmgren, H. (2009),
Hippocampal volumes in patients exposed to low dose radiation to the basal brain. Ms.