A study conducted at Binghamton University suggests that the risk of depression can be predicted with a simple visual test, providing possible methods for diagnosis at routine doctor visits.

The research was spearheaded by Anastacia Kudinova, a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate studying psychology. The work examines how to predict depression reoccurrence in individuals with a history of the disease. Major depressive disorder affects roughly 10 percent of men and 20 percent of women worldwide. It is a highly reoccurring condition, and statistics show that approximately 60 percent of individuals with a history of depression will relapse within five years.

“Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide,” Kudinova said. “Finding potential ways to intervene and prevent depression from progressing is very important. The study aimed to examine whether physiological reactions could be predictive of depression.”

The studies consisted of showing participants images of different facial expressions and then measuring their pupil dilation. The results of the study suggested that high degrees of pupil dilation in response to negative facial expressions could potentially be used to predict the risk of a depression relapse.

Brandon Gibb, the director of the Mood Disorders Institute and Center for Affective Science and a psychology professor at BU, said that the research holds promise for clinicians and patients and could impact the future of mental health research and care.

“We were trying to figure out if we can determine who is most at risk for depression in the future,” Gibb said. “We are now wondering if pupil dilation can be used as part of regular checkups to determine depression risk. Compare it to getting your cholesterol checked as part of your annual checkup; we are trying to figure out ways in laboratory tests for assessing the risk for mental health disorders so we can have early interventions.”

Funded by a National Institute of Child Health and Human Development grant and a National Institute of Mental Health grant, the study focused on depression in women because they have a much higher risk for major depressive disorder than men do. Fifty-seven women from the Binghamton area, all with a history of the disease, participated in the study.

“We focused on a high-risk group of women from the community who had previously been diagnosed with depression,” Kudinova said. “We found that women who exhibited extremely high or extremely low pupil dilation in response to angry faces were more likely to relapse within two years.”

Despite the research’s promising results, it will likely take time for this methodology to be put into practice in doctors’ offices. The study still needs to be replicated many more times before clinicians can begin to apply the research to their patients.

“There’s still a long way to go for the research to be directly applicable to clinicians,” Kudinova said. “However, it’s a very exciting field that’s trying to find methodology that could help point out those individuals at a high risk. Hopefully, if the results of the study are replicated over and over again, this could be something that clinicians could use to assess risk.”

The study, titled “Pupillary reactivity to negative stimuli prospectively predicts recurrence of major depressive disorder in women,” was originally published in the September 2016 edition of “Psychophysiology,” a scientific journal.