To address India’s alarming mental healthcare gap, NIMHANS in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, and the Lokopriya Gopinath Bordoloi Regional Institute of Mental Health (LGBRIMH), Tezpur, will formally launch a collaborative project titled ‘HEADS’ (Human-in-the-loop Evaluation of Assisted Depression Screening) on Thursday.

Funded by the Wellcome Trust, a major international charity foundation, the two-year study aims to build and evaluate AI-assisted approaches for the early identification and screening of depression. The initiative places a strong emphasis on Indian regional languages, specifically Kannada, Assamese, Hindi, Bengali, and English, which have historically remained substantially underrepresented in mental health AI research.

Bridging multilingual gap

Lekhansh Shukla, assistant professor of psychiatry at NIMHANS and principal investigator of the project, said India carries one of the world’s largest depression treatment gaps, where only about one in five individuals affected by depression receives timely, appropriate care. 

During the project’s hybrid launch event at NIMHANS, experts will highlight the critical limitation of existing digital health innovations. Most mental health AI tools are built using English-language, urban datasets, rendering them ineffective in diverse, non-English clinical settings, he said.

“In our earlier research, we found that even frontier models cannot understand or translate Indian languages, especially when discussion was about feelings and emotions. HEADS instead builds for Indian languages from day one, developing artificial intelligence that understands clinical conversations in Kannada, Hindi, Bengali, Assamese, and English,” Dr. Shukla told The Hindu.

‘Human-in-the-loop’ 

A central principle of the project is a strict ‘human-in-the-loop’ framework, ensuring that AI tools serve purely as supportive clinical decision-aids to help clinicians recognise symptoms earlier without ever replacing professional clinical judgment.

In a pioneering effort for Indian mental health research, the study has embedded a 15-member panel of Lived Experience Experts – individuals who have survived depression, anxiety, or substance use disorders – across every phase of the project. This panel has actively shaped the study’s design and informed consent protocols. They will also participate in language-evaluation groups across all targeted Indian languages, audit AI algorithms for hidden bias and stigmatising language, and stress-test systems before deployment, the doctor said.

Two-year evaluation

Over its 24-month duration, the HEADS project will record and analyse approximately 4,500 clinical interviews across healthcare sites at NIMHANS and LGBRIMH. Meanwhile, IIT Kharagpur will lead the core engineering, system development, and AI-safety work to ensure responsible deployment. Senior leadership, investigators, and project team members across all partner institutions attended the hybrid launch, marking a landmark step toward equitable digital mental healthcare in India.

In a move aimed at advancing research and innovation at the intersection of music, neuroscience and mental health, the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), in association with Mercuri Foundation, a philanthropic and research-oriented foundation, has proposed setting up a National Centre for Music, Brain, Mind and Health under the patronage of composer Ilaiyaraaja.

The proposed centre seeks to bring together experts in neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology, music, cognition, rehabilitation and technology to explore the role of music in human wellbeing.

According to an official statement from NIMHANS, the centre is envisaged as India’s first interdisciplinary national facility integrating neuroscience, mental health, music, cognition, rehabilitation and technology. It aims to promote research, clinical innovation, education and public engagement in understanding how music influences the brain, emotions, cognition and overall health.

The patronage ofIlaiyaraaja is expected to lend cultural and artistic depth to the initiative.
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The initiative is expected to build evidence-based approaches that draw on both traditional knowledge and contemporary neuroscience to improve mental health and wellbeing.

The patronage of Mr. Ilaiyaraaja, a Padma Vibhushan awardee and one of India’s most influential composers, is expected to lend cultural and artistic depth to the initiative, the statement said.

“The partnership reflects a shared vision of positioning India as a global leader in the emerging field of music, brain, mind and health sciences,” according to the statement.

The Music Cognition Laboratory at NIMHANS, established formally in 2011 after beginning research activities in 2009, is regarded as India’s first dedicated laboratory focused on music cognition and neuromusicology. The laboratory has undertaken studies on how music interacts with the brain, cognition, emotion and mental health.