mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Meta-learning in healthcare: A survey

arXiv 2308.02877 ↗First posted 5 Aug 2023cs.LG cs.AIcited by 9

Not on the map. Why?

Abstract (arXiv)

As a subset of machine learning, meta-learning, or learning to learn, aims at improving the model's capabilities by employing prior knowledge and experience. A meta-learning paradigm can appropriately tackle the conventional challenges of traditional learning approaches, such as insufficient number of samples, domain shifts, and generalization. These unique characteristics position meta-learning as a suitable choice for developing influential solutions in various healthcare contexts, where the available data is often insufficient, and the data collection methodologies are different. This survey discusses meta-learning broad applications in the healthcare domain to provide insight into how and where it can address critical healthcare challenges. We first describe the theoretical foundations and pivotal methods of meta-learning. We then divide the employed meta-learning approaches in the healthcare domain into two main categories of multi/single-task learning and many/few-shot learning and survey the studies. Finally, we highlight the current challenges in meta-learning research, discuss the potential solutions, and provide future perspectives on meta-learning in healthcare.

Key facts. Cited by 9 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 76 of its 241 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 5 Aug 2023.

Builds on

76 of 241 references.

References · 76

  1. 2019PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Librarycited by 20,305
  2. 2017Model-Agnostic Meta-Learning for Fast Adaptation of Deep Networkscited by 4,897
  3. 2017Prototypical Networks for Few-shot Learningcited by 3,015
  4. 2016Matching Networks for One Shot Learningcited by 2,255
  5. 2017Learning to Compare: Relation Network for Few-Shot Learningcited by 1,143
  6. 2018On First-Order Meta-Learning Algorithmscited by 1,018
  7. 2020Meta-Learning in Neural Networks: A Surveycited by 950
  8. 2019Meta-Learning with Implicit Gradientscited by 525
  9. 2018Conditional Neural Processescited by 426
  10. 2018Meta-learning with differentiable closed-form solverscited by 397
  11. 2019Rapid Learning or Feature Reuse? Towards Understanding the Effectiveness of MAMLcited by 359
  12. 2019Meta-Dataset: A Dataset of Datasets for Learning to Learn from Few Examplescited by 315
38 more
  1. 2019Reinforcement Learning in Healthcare: A Surveycited by 310
  2. 2018How to train your MAMLcited by 309
  3. 2018Meta-Transfer Learning for Few-Shot Learningcited by 306
  4. 2017Meta Networkscited by 269
  5. 2018Probabilistic Model-Agnostic Meta-Learningcited by 256
  6. 2018Meta-Learning: A Surveycited by 256
  7. 2020A review of deep learning in medical imaging: Imaging traits, technology trends, case studies with progress highlights, and future promisescited by 231
  8. 2018Bayesian Model-Agnostic Meta-Learningcited by 194
  9. 2020Cross-Domain Few-Shot Classification via Learned Feature-Wise Transformationcited by 185
  10. 2018Task-Agnostic Meta-Learning for Few-shot Learningcited by 151
  11. 2017Deep EHR: A Survey of Recent Advances in Deep Learning Techniques for Electronic Health Record (EHR) Analysiscited by 148
  12. 2016An Empirical Study and Analysis of Generalized Zero-Shot Learning for Object Recognition in the Wildcited by 146
  13. 2020Riemannian Continuous Normalizing Flowscited by 145
  14. 2019Online Meta-Learningcited by 137
  15. 2019What Clinicians Want: Contextualizing Explainable Machine Learning for Clinical End Usecited by 135
  16. 2019Feature-Critic Networks for Heterogeneous Domain Generalizationcited by 130
  17. 2016Towards a Neural Statisticiancited by 121
  18. 2019Multimodal Model-Agnostic Meta-Learning via Task-Aware Modulationcited by 103
  19. 2020A Survey of Deep Meta-Learningcited by 100
  20. 2019Generalized Inner Loop Meta-Learningcited by 93
  21. 2018Unsupervised Meta-Learning For Few-Shot Image Classificationcited by 75
  22. 2020learn2learn: A Library for Meta-Learning Researchcited by 69
  23. 2022When Physics Meets Machine Learning: A Survey of Physics-Informed Machine Learningcited by 65
  24. 2019ES-MAML: Simple Hessian-Free Meta Learningcited by 57
  25. 2019Torchmeta: A Meta-Learning library for PyTorchcited by 52
  26. 2019Learning to Balance: Bayesian Meta-Learning for Imbalanced and Out-of-distribution Taskscited by 48
  27. 2020Deep Representation Learning of Patient Data from Electronic Health Records (EHR): A Systematic Reviewcited by 47
  28. 2020Momentum Contrastive Learning for Few-Shot COVID-19 Diagnosis from Chest CT Imagescited by 43
  29. 2020Meta-learning for Few-shot Natural Language Processing: A Surveycited by 42
  30. 2022Anomaly Detection-Inspired Few-Shot Medical Image Segmentation Through Self-Supervision With Supervoxelscited by 42
  31. 2019MetaPred: Meta-Learning for Clinical Risk Prediction with Limited Patient Electronic Health Recordscited by 33
  32. 2020How Important is the Train-Validation Split in Meta-Learning?cited by 30
  33. 2020Online Structured Meta-learningcited by 27
  34. 2020Automated Relational Meta-learningcited by 25
  35. 2022When does Bias Transfer in Transfer Learning?cited by 23
  36. 2017The Doctor Just Won't Accept That!cited by 21
  37. 2020Meta-Learning for Few-Shot NMT Adaptationcited by 20
  38. 2022FHIST: A Benchmark for Few-shot Classification of Histological Imagescited by 20

50 most cited of 76 All 76 (JSON)

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2024: 3; 2025: 5; 2026: 1.

9 papers.