The UCLA Depression Grand Challenge collaborated with a consortium led by The Digital Health Measurement Collaborative Community (DATAcc) by the Digital Medicine Society (DiMe) to submit a proposal to Wellcome, a global charitable organization that funds discovery research, for the opportunity to conduct scoping research to assess how digital sensing technologies may be leveraged to detect and treat mental health conditions.

 Wellcome, a global charitable organization that funds discovery research, issued a request for proposals to extend the work of the digital sensing workshop, hosted at UCLA and co-sponsored by Wellcome and the National Institute of Mental Health in March 2023.

Leading mental health and computer science researchers, industry experts, advocates and funders who participated in the Digital Sensing Workshop held at UCLA in the winter of 2023 are seeking additional review and input from colleagues and other stakeholders for a shared vision, common standards and recommendations they created to facilitate the use of digital sensing technologies in mental health research.

More than 50 leading mental health and computer science researchers, industry experts, advocates and funders from six countries came together at UCLA Feb. 28 – Mar. 2, 2023 to collaborate on a shared vision and common goals for digital sensing technologies in mental health research.

The Depression Grand Challenge opened a new research study aimed to measure and track behavioral characteristics of depression and use these measures to predict brain activity, as measured by MRI scans.

After successfully completing two pilot studies, today is the launch of the final or main study phase of the Digital Mental Health Study, involving more than 3,000 participants recruited from UCLA Health and the UCLA student body.

The UCLA Depression Grand Challenge was one of twelve organizations selected as a performer for the Wellcome-Leap Multi-Channel Psych program. The program aims to develop better understanding about anhedonic depression, a severe and inhibitive kind of depression which affects the ability to feel pleasure or enjoyment.

Today is the launch of the second pilot phase of the study, involving approximately 140 participants recruited from UCLA Health. As with the prior pilot phase, this phase will be conducted entirely remotely.

Nelson Freimer, UCLA Depression Grand Challenge director, appeared on KTVU San Francisco to discuss the DGC’s pilot research project in collaboration with Apple.