Can Video Games Help Detect Depression?

With some illnesses, such as diabetes, a simple test can usually quantify how severe a person’s condition is, but depression is more complicated. The condition has been linked to a shrunken hippocampus, a part of the brain that also plays a role in spatial memory, so Neda Gould at the US National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and her colleagues wondered whether a video game that tests spatial memory could help measure the severity of the illness.

You have got to love the fact that games are becoming more commonly used for medical tests and procedures. The game they have been using is Duke Nukem… quite an interesting choice. It would be almost difficult to play that game and remain depressed for long.

Source: New Scientist