A recent pilot study headed by academics at the University of Illinois Chicago suggests that artificial intelligence (AI) may be a beneficial aid in treating mental illness.

From coding to even showing more empathy to patients than doctors, AI is now even able to help with our mental health.

The first to test an AI speech-based virtual coach for behavioral therapy, the team at UIC discovered that patients' brain activity changed after using Lumen, a voice assistant that provides a type of psychotherapy. The results? Decreased symptoms of sadness and anxiety.

The scientists claim that the findings, published in the journal Translational Psychiatry, provide encouraging evidence that virtual therapy can help fill the gaps in mental health care, where waitlists and access disparities are frequently obstacles that patients, particularly those from vulnerable communities, must overcome to receive treatment.

According to the National Institute of Health, approximately 57.8 million individuals suffer from mental health complications, and not everyone has proper access to mental health care.

Olusola A. Ajilore and Jun Ma, along with associates at Washington University in St. Louis and Pennsylvania State University, developed Lumen, a skill in the Amazon Alexa application.

"We've had an incredible explosion of need, especially in the wake of COVID, with soaring rates of anxiety and depression and not enough practitioners," says UIC professor of psychiatry Ajilore.

Over 60 patients were enrolled in the clinical study by the researchers, who examined how the application affected mild-to-moderate depressive and anxiety symptoms and brain activity in regions previously linked to problem-solving treatment's advantages. Eight sessions of problem-solving therapy were conducted using Lumen on an iPad given by the study for two-thirds of the patients, while the other third served as a "waitlist" control group that received no treatment.

Compared to the control group, participants using the Lumen app after the intervention had lower levels of psychological distress, anxiety, and depression. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a brain region linked to cognitive control, exhibited higher activity in the Lumen group, which was also connected with increased problem-solving abilities. There were also encouraging findings for women and underrepresented groups.

"This kind of technology may serve as a bridge. It's not meant to be a replacement for traditional therapy, but it may be an important stop-gap before somebody can seek treatment."

Ajilore

"It's about changing the way people think about problems and how to address them, and not being emotionally overwhelmed," continued Dr. Ma. "It's a pragmatic and patient-driven behavior therapy that's well established, which makes it a good fit for delivery using voice-based technology."

The team is presently engaged in a more extensive investigation that compares Lumen usage with a waitlist control group and patients undergoing human-coached problem-solving therapy. They emphasize that to meet a critical gap in the mental health system, the virtual coach need not perform better than an actual therapist.

Ma says, "The way we should think about digital mental health service is not for these apps to replace humans, but rather to recognize what a gap we have between supply and demand, and then find novel, effective and safe ways to deliver treatments to individuals who otherwise do not have access, to fill that gap."