arXiv Computation and Language

Taking the PULSE of Medical Reasoning: Step-Level Retrieval Timing for Knowledge-Grounded Inference

The paper introduces PUlSE, a lightweight probing method that uses a language model’s internal representations to decide when to retrieve external biomedical evidence during medical reasoning. By analyzing inter‑layer volatility, PUlSE identifies erroneous reasoning steps and triggers adaptive retrieval, achieving comparable accuracy to exhaustive retrieval while cutting retrieval calls by 72%. The approach also transfers to an unseen legal domain, suggesting broader applicability.

arXiv Computation and Language
Aug 28

CARE: Causally-Aligned Reasoning Exploration for Medical Large Language Models

CARE: Causally-Aligned Reasoning Exploration for Medical Large Language Models proposes a new framework to improve medical reasoning in LLMs. It introduces two key conditions—Causal Sufficiency and Proximal Learnability—to curate high-quality training trajectories, using agreement-based self-verification and dynamic entropy bounds. Experiments on medical multimodal and text-only benchmarks show that CARE outperforms competitors, reducing incorrect reasoning and enhancing training stability.

By Yucheng Zhou, Peng Luo, Qianning Wang, Chengzhong Xu, Jianbing Shen
arXiv AI
Jun 9

From Conflict to Consensus: Boosting Medical Reasoning via Multi-Round Agentic RAG

arXiv:2603. 03292v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Large Language Models (LLMs) exhibit high reasoning capacity in medical question-answering, but their tendency to produce hallucinations and outdated knowledge poses critical risks in healthcare fields.

By Wenhao Wu, Zhentao Tang, Yafu Li, Shixiong Kai, Mingxuan Yuan, Zhenhong Sun, Chunlin Chen, Zhi Wang
arXiv AI
Sep 7

Constructing and Evaluating Clinical Reasoning Trajectories for Medical Agent

The paper introduces MedTraj, a framework that constructs, evaluates, and optimizes multi‑step reasoning trajectories for medical AI agents. It parses each trajectory into observations, evidence, numbered steps, and a conclusion, scoring them on coherence, evidence support, hallucination, completeness, and traceability. Experiments on CareQA, PubMedQA, and CECMed show that incorporating quality‑weighted trajectory context improves reasoning coherence and correctness while significantly reducing hallucinations.

By Yunqi Zhu, Wensheng Zhang, Xuebing Yang
arXiv Computation and Language
Oct 22

Reasoning-Search-Augmented LLMs: An Operational Taxonomy, Benchmark Analysis and Controlled Evidence Synthesis

The paper reviews and categorizes large language models that combine step‑by‑step reasoning with interactive search, treating retrieval as an action within an iterative agentic loop. It analyzes these systems along four architectural axes—retrieval coupling, controller design, knowledge source, and grounding strictness—while also considering the learning signal as a cross‑cutting factor. The authors conduct controlled ablations and benchmark analyses to clarify how design choices affect search, stopping, and grounding behavior, aiming to provide a unified perspective for future research.

By Biswas Poudel, Nilson Chapagain, Amit Kumar, Xianshun Jiang
arXiv AI
Jul 13

Evaluating Retrieval-Augmented Generation vs. Long-Context Input for Clinical Reasoning over EHRs

arXiv:2508. 14817v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Objective: To evaluate whether retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) can serve as an efficient alternative to long-context prompting for clinical reasoning over electronic health records (EHRs).

By Skatje Myers, Dmitriy Dligach, Timothy A. Miller, Samantha Barr, James Landefeld, Yanjun Gao, Matthew Churpek, Anoop Mayampurath, Majid Afshar