# Joint Optimization of Reasoning and Dual-Memory for Self-Learning Diagnostic Agent

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.07269 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.07269/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Clinical and biomedical applications, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 24 of its 34 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 8 Apr 2026.

## Placed in

- LLM reasoning / [Clinical and biomedical applications](https://mlsanity.com/lr/clinical-and-biomedical-applications/)
- LLM agents and tool use / [Medical and scientific domain agents](https://mlsanity.com/agents/medical-and-scientific-domain-agents/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 24 of 24)

- [The Llama 3 Herd of Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.21783/) (2024)
- [DeepSeekMath: Pushing the Limits of Mathematical Reasoning in Open Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.03300/) (2024)
- [Qwen3 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.09388/) (2025)
- [MedGemma Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.05201/) (2025)
- [The Landscape of Agentic Reinforcement Learning for LLMs: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.02547/) (2025)
- [Olmo 3](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.13961/) (2025)
- [HealthGPT: A Medical Large Vision-Language Model for Unifying Comprehension and Generation via Heterogeneous Knowledge Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.09838/) (2025)
- [DR Tulu: Reinforcement Learning with Evolving Rubrics for Deep Research](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.19399/) (2025)
- [MedAgent-Pro: Towards Evidence-based Multi-modal Medical Diagnosis via Reasoning Agentic Workflow](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.18968/) (2025)
- [ExGRPO: Learning to Reason from Experience](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.02245/) (2025)
- [An Agentic System for Rare Disease Diagnosis with Traceable Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.20430/) (2025)
- [MedCaseReasoning: Evaluating and learning diagnostic reasoning from clinical case reports](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.11733/) (2025)
- [ER-Reason: A Benchmark Dataset for LLM Clinical Reasoning in the Emergency Room](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.22919/) (2025)
- [Learning on the Job: An Experience-Driven Self-Evolving Agent for Long-Horizon Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.08002/) (2025)
- [Language Agents for Hypothesis-driven Clinical Decision Making with Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.13474/) (2025)
- [Large Language Model Agent for Modular Task Execution in Drug Discovery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.02925/) (2025)
- [Doctor-R1: Mastering Clinical Inquiry with Experiential Agentic Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.04284/) (2025)
- [End-to-End Agentic RAG System Training for Traceable Diagnostic Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.15746/) (2025)
- [Multi-Agent Medical Decision Consensus Matrix System: An Intelligent Collaborative Framework for Oncology MDT Consultations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.14321/) (2025)
- [Evolving Interactive Diagnostic Agents in a Virtual Clinical Environment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.24654/) (2025)
- [RareAgents: Autonomous Multi-disciplinary Team for Rare Disease Diagnosis and Treatment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.12475/) (2024)
- [MACD: Multi-Agent Clinical Diagnosis with Self-Learned Knowledge for LLM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.20067/) (2025)
- [ConfAgents: A Conformal-Guided Multi-Agent Framework for Cost-Efficient Medical Diagnosis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.04915/) (2025)
- [A Medical Multimodal Diagnostic Framework Integrating Vision-Language Models and Logic Tree Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.21583/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [MedGuideX: Internalizing Decision Logic from Executable Guidelines into Large Language Models for Clinical Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.26567/) (2026)
- [Med-OPD: Improving Medical Vision-Language Models via Evidence-Aware On-Policy Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.16303/) (2026)
- [CDEG: Learning Decision-Critical Evidence for Long-Horizon Diagnostic Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.22899/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Clinical expertise improves not only by acquiring medical knowledge, but by accumulating experience that yields reusable diagnostic patterns. Recent LLMs-based diagnostic agents have shown promising progress in clinical reasoning for decision support. However, most approaches treat cases independently, limiting experience reuse and continual adaptation. We propose SEA, a self-learning diagnostic agent with cognitively inspired dual-memory module. We design a reinforcement training framework tailored to our designed agent for joint optimization of reasoning and memory management. We evaluate SEA in two complementary settings. On standard evaluation with MedCaseReasoning dataset, SEA achieves 92.46% accuracy, outperforming the strongest baseline by +19.6%, demonstrating the benefit of jointly optimizing reasoning and memory. On the long-horizon with ER-Reason dataset, SEA attains the best final accuracy (0.7214) and the largest improvement (+0.35 Acc@100), while baseline methods show limited or unstable gains. Expert evaluation further indicates that rules consolidated from SEA show strong clinical correctness, usefulness and trust, suggesting that the induced rules in dual-memory module are reliable and practically meaningful. Overall, SEA improves both diagnostic reasoning ability and continual learning by effectively transforming experience into reusable knowledge.
