An app that detects depressive disorder using AI

By analysing on a minute of natural speech, NeuroCo improves the detection rate of depressive disorder.

The depressive disorder is one of the fastest growing diseases in the world. More than 350 million people in the world suffer from the depressive disorder, and unfortunately, 15% of these individuals will commit suicide. Accordingly, depressive disorder is the single most significant contributor to disability in the world and contributes to productivity losses of $1 trillion per year.

Clinical intervention is key to addressing this problem through regular screening the most effective preventative method. Unfortunately, current depression detection tools suffer from high error rates and offer poor usability. As a result, misdiagnosis and overdiagnosis rates of depression are 55% and 27%, respectively. Further compounding this problem, when a patient has another psychiatric disorder or medical condition, misdiagnosis rates increase to 70%.

Accordingly, there is a need to develop more effective detection tools for depressive disorder. NeuroCo is that tool.

NeuroCo is an App that assists clinicians in measuring the severity level of depression in an individual. In a clinical setting, an individual will be asked to record a one minute of speech about a topic of his/her choice using the app. The recorded natural speech will then be analysed using artificial intelligence technologies in the app and provide a report that includes whether the individual has a depressive disorder and the level severity of the depression. Registered users can download the app and have the progress of their depression seviarity level reviewed and managed by the clinicans as part of their treatment plan.

NeuroCo has the potential to revolutionise the detection of depressive disorder for some key reasons. First, the solution outperforms existing detection tools by 30%. Secondly, while current tools are limited to specific demographics, NeuroCo is language and age independent which means that it can be utilised in diverse population groups and can be deployed globally. Thirdly, as opposed to existing tools, NeuroCo only requires low cognitive capacity which increases its usability. Finally, NeuroCo technology can be integrated into wearable devices for ongoing monitoring of the severity level of depressive disorder.

By revolutionising the detection of depressive disorder, NeuroCo will change the world. Recognising that 350 million people in the world suffer from depression, by reducing diagnosis errors by 30%, NeuroCo will improve the quality of life of 60 million people. And most importantly, this will help reduce the number of people who die by suicide every year due to untreated and mistreated clinical depression.

Current approaches to detect depressive disorder relies solely on clinical interviews or through Q&A based rating scales. These approaches require a clinical expert to analyse the responses given by the individual.

This is a new technology that is innovative because it uses artificial intelligence to detect whether a person has a depressive disorder by analysing one minute of their speech. This technology model the analytics and decision-making capabilities of the clinician. It outperforms existing detection tools by 30%, can be utilised by diverse population groups, can be integrated into wearable devices for ongoing monitoring, and only requires low cognitive capacity. 

Technology is integral to NeuroCo as it relies on various computing algorithms that are combined in a web-based app to automatically conduct all the tasks required for the detection of depressive disorder.

The essential tasks include recording a minute of speech of the user and then analysing it using artificial intelligent algorithms.  The technology within the solution then concludes whether the person has a depressive disorder, and communicates this diagnosis with those responsible for taking action.

Building on NeuroCo’s success thus far in a research setting, our main goal for the next 12 months is to conduct clinical efficacy testing of the solution through real-world clinical trials in tertiary care.  This will allow NeuroCo to prove the solution in a real-life setting. We anticipate testing the solution with 300 subjects at a partner hospital in Victoria, Australia. The test results will be useful in our regulatory application.

The vision for NeuroCo over the next three to five years is to grow and scale the solution globally. The depressive disorder is a global problem. Due to the innovative technology that our solution utilises, it is able to be scaled globally in a cost-effective manner. Countries will low mental health equity would be identified as key beneficiary countries to grow into.

NeuroCo’s strategic plan for reaching and retaining beneficiaires to deploy the solution is three-fold. First, we will target and build relationships  with clinicians to recommend the use of the technology to the targeted beneficiaries. Secondly, given that our solution will be available through both mobile and web-based apps, we will establish B2B and B2G partnerships in order to integrate our solution into existing practice management software in clinical settings. This will enable clinicians to use the solution when dealing with their patient base. Finally, we will market the solution through a B2C channel in collaboration with mental health organisations.

Currently, the solution is not available for public use. We are currently awaiting human ethics approval in order to start the clinical validation of the technology with a public hospital in Victoria, Australia. We have previously tested the technology in research setting with 150 subjects to identify adolescents with clinical depression. Had the technology was available publically, 30% more adolescents would have been detected accurately for the presence of depressive disorder.

Those benefiting from the solution will be those participating 300 individuals in the clinical trials. These individuals will be served through our partner hospital. NeuroCo will be used to assist clinicians to make accurate, data-driven decisions when accessing these individuals.

They will benefit from using the solution as they will be 30% more accurately detected for the presence of a depressive disorder. As a result, they will more likely be accurately treated for their condition, contributing to an improvement in their quality of life.

Over the next three years, we anticipate to scale our solution nationwide in Australia.

The NeuroCo team has a wide range of world leaders in the psychiatric (including the immediate past president of RANZCP) , artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and computer science.

Co-founder, Dr. Namunu Maddage, has over five years of research experience in AI-based clinical depression detection. Furthermore, he is a serial entrepreneur having previously built a brain training app that was used by 100,000 users to improve their cognitive abilities. He is also an MBA alum of Melbourne Business School.

The product development team has over 15 years of collective experience developing real-time artificial intelligence solutions for leading multi-national companies.

Our revenue model is based on clinical and non-clinical customers paying an initial setup fee and then paying an annual subscription fee to continue to utilise the NeuroCo services. After clinical validation and regulatory approval, we will be in a stronger position to establish B2C, B2B and B2G contracts in various markets such as healthcare, employee wellness and friends & family markets.

We are applying for Solve as in order to best scale and grow our solution, we require partnerships across global health, technology and business. We believe that Solve can help us establish and build such partnerships.  

We also believe Solve can help advance the development of our solution as we seek guidance on regulatory applications, and access to fundraising opportunities.

NeuroCo is facing a number of barriers that is preventing our solution from scaling. These include: collecting multilingual clinical data, a lack of funding, and worldwide regulatory approval.

We believe Solve can help by helping us to partner with different psychiatric partners in different parts of the world, increase our access to funding opportunities, and provide learning opportunities on how to achieve regulatory approval in different global jurisdictions.