Three-Minute Game May Serve as a Depression Diagnostic Tool

NYU researchers created a three-minute smartphone game to help identify major depression by measuring how people adjust to changing rewards; depressed participants switched trees earlier and bid differently on snacks, signaling distorted expectations and reduced pleasure response, with results correlating to illness severity. The team envisions the game as a remote diagnostic and monitoring tool—potentially prescribed to track treatment efficacy before next in-person visits, pending FDA clearance as a Class II medical device.