Depression is often identified through conversations, questionnaires, and assessments of symptoms such as persistent sadness, low motivation, or loss of interest. But researchers are exploring whether behavior during simple games could provide another useful clue.

A recent NIH-funded study tested two game-like tasks designed to examine how people make decisions. The researchers found clear differences between participants with moderate to severe depression and those without the condition.

The results suggest that certain patterns of decision-making may reflect how depression changes the way rewards and choices are processed.

A Game About Apples and Rewards

The first task looked at how long people continued pursuing a reward once it started becoming less valuable.

Participants collected apples from virtual trees. Each time they harvested the same tree, it produced fewer apples. At any point, they could decide to remain with the current tree or leave and start harvesting from a new one.

At first glance, the task sounds almost too simple to reveal anything meaningful. But the researchers found a consistent difference.

Participants with depression tended to leave a tree sooner than participants without depression. Even more importantly, the point at which they decided to move on was closely associated with the severity of their depressive symptoms.

The game was designed to measure when a person stops finding an activity rewarding. That is especially relevant to depression because loss of interest or pleasure—often called anhedonia—is one of its central symptoms.

Rather than simply asking someone whether activities feel rewarding, the task gives researchers a way to observe how reward-related decisions unfold in real time.

The Second Game Tested Flexible Decision-Making

The researchers then examined a different aspect of behavior: how people adjust their preferences when circumstances change.

Participants were first shown snack foods and asked to rank them according to how much they would be willing to pay for each one. Later, the foods were presented in different combinations.

Among healthy participants, the value assigned to an item often changed depending on which other foods appeared beside it. In other words, their decisions were influenced by context.

Participants with depression behaved differently. Their rankings were less likely to shift when the available alternatives changed.

This finding suggests that depression may affect not only how rewards feel, but also how flexibly people update decisions when the surrounding situation changes.

Why These Results Matter

Depression can be difficult to identify quickly. Its symptoms vary considerably between individuals, and people may describe their experiences differently.

Behavioral tasks could potentially provide clinicians with another type of information—one based on observable choices rather than self-reported feelings alone.

Dr. Paul Glimcher of New York University, who co-led the research, explained that the behavioral game offers clues about what may be happening in the brains of people with depression.

That does not mean a short video game can currently diagnose the condition. The researchers see these tasks as possible future screening or monitoring tools, not replacements for clinical evaluation.

From Symptoms to Decision Patterns

The study is interesting because it approaches depression from a slightly different direction.

Instead of focusing only on whether someone reports sadness or low mood, it examines how depression may alter the underlying calculations people make about rewards, effort, and choices.

Someone may not consciously notice that they are abandoning rewards sooner or responding less flexibly to changing options. A structured task can potentially capture those subtle patterns.

Such information might eventually help doctors recognize depression more efficiently or follow changes in symptoms over time.

More Research Is Still Needed

The findings are promising, but they are an early step. Researchers will need to determine how accurately the games work across larger and more diverse groups of people and whether similar decision patterns can appear in other mental health conditions.

It will also be important to establish how these tools could fit into real clinical settings.