Dr Pratima Murthy is the director of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru.
It sets standards for clinical care, sets benchmarks for the country in post-graduate training, facilitates research, and provides suggestions for national policy on mental health.
Dr Pratima Murthy: At NIMHANS, the use of tech for mental health intervention is in three broad areas.
This includes case-based learning methods, best practices and it is being used to train mental health professionals in Southeast asia.
With Tele MANAS, a National tele mental health programme, a tele consultation service for addiction and mental health which started off in 2022, has received around 7.5 lakh calls so far.
Dr Pratima Murthy is the director of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru.
Established in 1974, NIMHANS is a multidisciplinary institute for patient care and performs cutting-edge research in the field of mental health and neurosciences. It sets standards for clinical care, sets benchmarks for the country in post-graduate training, facilitates research, and provides suggestions for national policy on mental health.
Dr Pratima brings about 30 years of experience in mental health. A well-known name in addiction psychiatry, she has been instrumental in building the Centre for Addiction Medicine at NIMHANS.
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Dr Pratima spoke to indianexpress.com on the tech interventions which are changing the face of mental health, the role of AI, and the mobile applications that are being built by NIMHANS for enhancing mental health awareness. Edited excerpts:
Venkatesh Kannaiah: Can you give a broad overview of your work, with specific references to tech based interventions in the field of mental health?
Dr Pratima Murthy: At NIMHANS, the use of tech for mental health intervention is in three broad areas. Firstly, it is in patient care, where there have been tech breakthroughs in physical treatment of patients with a technique called neuromodulation. Neuromodulation is a kind of electrical or magnetic stimulation of specific parts of the brain, to treat what is called Treatment Resistant Depression. Neuromodulation works by either actively stimulating nerves to produce a natural biological response or by applying targeted pharmaceutical agents in tiny doses directly to the site of action.
Neuromodulation is a kind of a variation of the earlier electro convulsive therapy (ECT) which was used on patients with suicidal thoughts, patients with depression, mood disorders, and when normal medication was not having significant impact. However, this fell into disrepute due to the portrayal of the tech in popular media, and now what researchers are working on is a milder and gentler form of the stimulation of various parts of the brain to generate the desired impact.
“Among the important tech advancements which are having an impact on mental health practice is the one on neuromodulation, wherein electrical or magnetic stimulation is provided to certain parts of the brain to generate a desired response,” Dr Murthy says. (Express photo by Jithendra M) “Among the important tech advancements which are having an impact on mental health practice is the one on neuromodulation, wherein electrical or magnetic stimulation is provided to certain parts of the brain to generate a desired response,” Dr Murthy says. (Express photo by Jithendra M)
We are also using tech to build smartphone applications for fighting a variety of conditions. We had developed PUSH-D, an app for fighting depression. PUSH-D (Practice and Use Self-Help for Depression) is a computer-based self-care programme which is meant to empower individuals by offering a space to learn, strengthen and practice psychological skills that can be useful in dealing with depressive symptoms. It is not meant for diagnosis of depression and is not a substitute for professional services provided by a mental health professional.
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We have also developed an app, MindNotes, helping you to navigate your mental wellness journey through enhancing self-awareness and gaining clarity about the nature of your common mental health concerns, and building your self-help toolkit along the way. It helps in improving self awareness, and for young people to solve their emotional problems by connecting deeply with nature and their surroundings.
Venkatesh Kannaiah: Can you tell us about some tech interventions or innovations globally, which had an impact of late on the mental health sector?
Dr Pratima Murthy: Among the important tech advancements which are having an impact on mental health practice is the one on neuromodulation, wherein electrical or magnetic stimulation is provided to certain parts of the brain to generate a desired response. This is being used now with patients suffering from depression and other serious mental illnesses. It is an exciting tech, but we are not clear about the extent of its impact or how far it could go in the near future.
The second advancement is on wearable devices which are now monitoring everything, from anxiety and thought processes to sleep and mood. This is changing the way we can monitor patients in real-life surroundings and get data as they move through their life. In wearable devices, there are apps that measure indicators which are relevant specifically to schizophrenia, like measuring mood or excitement.
The third is virtual reality which is helpful in fighting autism among children by either making them familiar or desensitising them to certain surroundings by repeated exposure, or increasing exposure of patients to certain stimuli in obsessive compulsive disorders. We at NIMHANS are also working on a design studio to fight dementia, helping patients work on managing their environment, cognitively stimulate them, and help them fight their phobias.
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The fourth is the interventions in tele psychotherapy which reduces the stigma of a mental illness and makes it easier for patients to do follow-ups.
Dr Pratima brings about 30 years of experience in mental health. Dr Pratima brings about 30 years of experience in mental health.
Venkatesh Kannaiah: Can you talk about tech-related innovations that have come out of your research labs and which have led to substantial impact?
Dr Pratima Murthy: In the case of fighting addiction, we have built a training app for physicians, incorporating the latest treatment protocols in the field of addiction, and with research findings. There is an audience for this app in nearly 90 countries. NIMHANS along with the university of New Mexico has developed an app for training and telementoring of healthcare professionals particularly in the field of addiction. This includes case-based learning methods, best practices and it is being used to train mental health professionals in Southeast asia.
We have built apps for fighting depression and stress specifically among medical graduates and for the medical profession with National Alliance for Mental Health Assistance for Healthcare Providers (NAMAH). With Quest, we have been using a smartphone app to fight relapse of alcohol addicts. There are many apps that help patients with mild alcohol addiction but there are not many apps for patients diagnosed with alcohol use disorder.
We have also worked with the governments of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Odisha and have trained more than 9000 healthcare providers through tele mentoring, and have extensive experience and learning from tackling the issue of alcohol addiction after the imposition of prohibition in Bihar.
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We also have a NIMHANS digital academy, where we provide online certificate and degree courses for healthcare professionals and lay counselors. We also have built an conversational AI bot in Hindi for tele consultation round the clock on addiction.
With Tele MANAS, a National tele mental health programme, a tele consultation service for addiction and mental health which started off in 2022, has received around 7.5 lakh calls so far. These could range from serious mental disorders to sleep disturbances to even exam anxiety. Tele MANAS cells have been set up in all states in the country and now the service is even being extended to the armed forces.
NIMHANS has also been awarded the Nelson Mandela Award for Health Promotion for 2024 by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Dr Pratima says, “In some cases, facial expressions are being studied to identify emotions and also the kind of emotional dysregulation that occurs in schizophrenia.” Dr Pratima says, “In some cases, facial expressions are being studied to identify emotions and also the kind of emotional dysregulation that occurs in schizophrenia.”
Venkatesh Kannaiah: Can you tell us how AI is being used to fight mental health issues?
Dr Pratima Murthy: AI is being used in the mental health space to identify suicide risks or potential for self-harm of individuals based on earlier data and behaviours, and timely prediction of such behaviours would be very impactful. AI is used to recognise voices with a hint of depression or anxiety. In some cases, facial expressions are being studied to identify emotions and also the kind of emotional dysregulation that occurs in schizophrenia. A lot of work is going on, and some of it is from our labs and research centres. We are also doing some interesting studies mapping walking or pacing rhythms or patterns and predicting potential for violence.
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However, we have not yet gotten to analysing large sets of available data on addiction, using AI to predict potential addiction targets.
Venkatesh Kannaiah: What is the kind of work you do on social media addiction?
Dr Pratima Murthy: We are now trying to study the issue of social media addiction, particularly the issue of online gaming, online gambling and the adverse psychosocial consequences of such addiction. We are looking at the prevalence of these disorders and also on how to mitigate them. We are also looking at apps which cause self-harm or which encourage online gambling. I hope that we as a society rise up to this challenge faster, as there is not much time.
