An historical overview of artificial intelligence for diagnosis of major depressive disorder

Abstract

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology holds immense potential in the realm of automated diagnosis for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), yet it is not without potential shortcomings. This paper systematically reviews the research progresses of integrating AI technology with depression diagnosis and provides a comprehensive analysis of existing research findings. In this context, we observe that the knowledge-driven first-generation of depression diagnosis methods could only address deterministic issues in structured information, with the selection of depression-related features directly influencing identification outcomes. The data-driven second-generation of depression diagnosis methods achieved automatic learning of features but required substantial high-quality clinical data, and the results were often obtained solely from the black-box models which lack sufficient explainability. In an effort to overcome the limitations of the preceding approaches, the third-generation of depression diagnosis methods combined the strengths of knowledge-driven and data-driven approaches. Through the fusion of information, the diagnostic accuracy is greatly enhanced, but the interpretability remains relatively weak. In order to enhance interpretability and introduce diagnostic criteria, this paper offers a new approach using Large Language Models (LLMs) as AI agents for assisting the depression diagnosis. Finally, we also discuss the potential advantages and challenges associated with this approach. This newly proposed innovative approach has the potential to offer new perspectives and solutions in the diagnosis of depression.

Keywords: AI agent; MDD; artificial intelligence; large language model; major depressive disorder; multimodal diagnosis.