Overview
- The peer-reviewed study led by NYU Langone was published May 18 in PNAS and tested 120 people, 50 with prior major depressive disorder and 70 healthy controls, using a three-minute apple-foraging and snack-bidding game.
- Players with depression stopped harvesting reward about 50 percent sooner than healthy subjects, leaving a tree when yields were still around eight to nine apples compared with about five for controls, which the authors quantify as a shifted decisional reference point.
- The authors interpret that shift as a measurable form of anhedonia tied to expectation-setting brain circuitry such as the anterior cingulate, treating the altered reference point as a candidate mechanistic marker for a depression subtype.
- The research team is already testing whether behavioral therapy or drugs can reverse the so-called reference-point 'stickiness' and says it will pursue further validation studies and regulatory clearance before any clinical rollout.
- The finding is NIMH-funded and presented as promising and translational but remains preliminary because it is based on a single study of 120 people, so wider, more diverse trials are needed before the game can be used to guide real-world diagnosis or treatment adjustments.