3-Minute Game Spots Depression: Can Zambia Build Our Own?

Western researchers at New York University have created a three-minute smartphone video game that can detect clinical depression. But while our people struggle with mental health in silence, why are we always waiting for foreign solutions?

How the Game Works

The game is simple. You collect apples falling from trees. At first, nine apples drop from a tree, but the more you harvest, the fewer apples it gives back each round. So you eventually have to move to a new tree to keep your score high.

Scientists found that people without depression switched to a new tree once their current tree dwindled to around four or five apples per round. Those with depression switched much earlier, sometimes at eight apples. The sicker the person, the faster they switched.

This difference reveals something called anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure from things that normally bring joy. About 70% of clinically depressed people experience it. The game picks up on how their expectations get stuck, unlike healthy people whose expectations reset naturally.

Western Science, Zambian Reality

Senior study author Paul Glimcher, director of the Institute for Translational Neuroscience at NYU's Grossman School of Medicine, called it a potential thermometer for depression.