I’m using Claude (AI) to help me dig into data for a new book I’m writing. As part of Claude’s feedback to me, he presented an unexpected combination of ideas from the material I had studied. These combinations became possible due to the ability to quickly synthesize information from different databases.
Some of these combinations have helped me find interesting new ways of thinking about the subject. Because of this, I realized that AI could help accelerate the emergence of serendipitous scientific discoveries.
Discovery of antibiotics
The main advances in science were initially based on observing the phenomena around us. A famous example of serendipitous observation involves Dr. Alexander Fleming’s discovery that led to the characterization of antibiotics.
Fleming grew bacteria in petri dishes and noticed that no bacteria would grow in one dish contaminated with mold. He asked himself how this could be, and thought that the mold would produce an anti-bacterial compound. Fleming’s observations eventually led to the development of penicillin, one of the most transformative medical discoveries of the 20th century (Lax, 2004).
Patient with PANDAS and OCD
It was that spirit of curiosity that prompted Fleming to ask To what extent Rather than simply moving on, this led me to look closely at the remarkable patient described in my book with pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcal infections (PANDAS). With this disease, inflammation produced by the body to fight streptococcal bacteria is believed to attack the brain and cause consequences.
My patient progressed rapidly due to his disease which started at the age of 11 years worry and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) so severe that she could not leave her room without performing a long series of rituals that were difficult to perform. As a result, he rarely left his room for four years, missed school and lost friends.
My patient improved greatly with self-administration.hypnosis for regulating his OCD and with his hypnosis-assisted instructions unconscious. Within four months, he was able to leave his room, regain social connections, and return to school.
Then he began to express deep spiritual thoughts that arose from his exploration of the subconscious. In addition, he began to engage in daily self-reflection exercises, which strengthened his spiritual beliefs.
PANDAS, OCD, and rituals in religious practice
I discussed with my patient that there are significant similarities between the rituals we observe in OCD and the rituals in religions. Freud (1907) was originally observed. For example, both religious rituals and OCD compulsions require the exact repetition of certain actions. If an error occurs, the ritual must be restarted.
Rituals involving purification and purification, which have deep spiritual significance in Jewish, Islamic, and Hindu practices, have structural similarities with the fear of contamination in OCD. Additionally, when people experience unwanted, sinful thoughts, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have specific rituals and theological frameworks for dealing with this.
There is even a subtype of OCD that includes obsessive and compulsive thoughts of a religious nature, e.g. fear guilt, distress due to blasphemous thoughts, compulsive confession, and compulsive reading of religious texts (Nelson et al., 2006). Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between OCD and genuine religious fervor.
When I discussed rituals with Claude AI, he mentioned religious rituals (Graybiel, 2008), OCD (Graybiel & Rauch, 2000), and PANDAS (Swedo et al., 2004) are all thought to be related to activity or dysregulation of the basal ganglia of the brain, and some citations are given to illustrate this observation. (I checked the accuracy of these citations in the Pubmed bibliographic database, given AI’s tendency to hallucinate).
Based on Claude’s observations, I predicted the patient’s progress spirituality Because his recovery can be directly related to the changes in the brain caused by PANDAS. This hypothesis is supported by my observation that several other patients in my clinical practice with a history of PANDAS and OCD have also become highly psychotic.
Scientific studies will be needed to evaluate the merits of my hypothesis, but it is worth noting that this new idea was formed by the information provided by the AI.
Claude once again showed his associative ability that OCD is characterized by aggressive thoughts and compulsive attempts at control, in contrast to the spiritual practice of letting go of control, believing in a higher power, and accepting what is received without judgment.
It helped me realize that spiritual practice can be therapeutic for OCD, with studies showing its benefits. vigilance and acceptance-based programs in the treatment of OCD (Bürkle et al., 2025).
AI can accelerate scientific progress
My recent experiences with Claude led me to explore how AI has accelerated scientific progress. Similar to how Fleming’s serendipitous observation led to the development of antibiotics, in 2020 an AI-assisted analysis of the molecular structure of more than 100 million chemical compounds revealed that a drug previously studied for the treatment of diabetes could be a powerful antibiotic (Stokes et al.).
Take away
Our use of AI is at a relatively early stage. So I think that as AI gets more advanced (in addition to our current use of large language models that drive AI like Claude), many scientists will use it regularly. cutting– AI technology to inform and accelerate research progress.
For example, a hypothesis about my patient’s mental development and basal ganglia changes needs to be tested, and this is exactly how AI-accelerated discovery is supposed to work: it helps generate hypotheses that researchers can pursue.
