Large-scale research project on depression kicks off

A national brain-health research project targeting depression has kicked off in Shanghai, overseen by China Brain Science and Brain-Like Intelligence Technology.

Led by the Shanghai Mental Health Center, a total of 25 top medical facilities and research institutions around the nation are participating in the project, which covers different stages of depression based on imaging pictures and clinical data to describe the route of disease development and analyze and forecast future situations.

According to the World Health Organization, depression will cause the highest disease burden in 2030. Depression in China is also a serious problem, which affects more than 95 million people at present.

"Depression is a serious mental disease with a high rate of suicide and relapse. The route of disease development is still not clear and there are many treatments. But there is a lack of effective measures to evaluate the effects of different treatments," said Dr Peng Daihui from the Shanghai Mental Health Center, one of the project's leading experts.

"This project will carry out multi-center, regular, standard and larger-scale research to cover different stages of the disease in order to identify an effective disease-management format for Chinese," Peng said.

Experts said the choice of treatment measures depends on doctors' personal experiences, and there is a lack of biomarkers and other evidence-based tools to forecast and evaluate treatment effects and risks.

"The project will adopt more brain-science technologies, objective imaging information and artificial intelligence to study risk factors for depression, build treatment models for clinical promotion and develop effective forecasts for treatment results to guide doctors," Peng said.

The project will boost research on depression in China and expand knowledge about the brain to prevent brain diseases. It is expected to improve monitoring, prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation for depression, reducing the economic burden to patients, families and society while enhancing public health, experts said.