Stories
NIMHANS Launches AI Project to Screen Depression in Indian Languages
N
News18•24-09-2026, 21:00
NIMHANS Launches AI Project to Screen Depression in Indian Languages
- •NIMHANS, IIT Kharagpur, and LGBRIMH Tezpur launched the HEADS project to develop an AI-assisted system for depression screening in Indian languages.
- •The two-year project, funded by the Wellcome Charitable Foundation, will create an open-source system to transcribe, translate, and summarize clinical interviews, providing clinicians with depression assessments and severity estimates.
- •Clinicians will retain final decision-making authority, reviewing and correcting AI-generated assessments to ensure accuracy and safety.
- •The project will interview 4,500 participants in Kannada, Hindi, Bengali, Assamese, and English to address limitations of existing AI tools in capturing psychological distress in diverse Indian languages.
- •The initiative aims to produce an open, modular screening tool, de-identified datasets, and trained researchers to support earlier recognition of depression, even by non-specialist health workers.
Key Questions Answered
The HEADS project aims to develop an AI-assisted open-source system to screen for depression in multiple Indian languages, helping clinicians recognize psychological distress earlier while keeping them in final decision-making control.
NIMHANS is partnering with IIT Kharagpur, which is handling AI engineering and model testing, and the Lokopriya Gopinath Bordoloi Regional Institute of Mental Health (LGBRIMH) in Tezpur.
Over the 24-month project, psychiatrists will interview 4,500 consenting participants—comprising 4,000 patients and 500 healthy volunteers—in Kannada, Hindi, Bengali, Assamese, and English.
