New Scientist Tech informs that Neda Gould of the US National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and her colleagues have considered the use of a Duke Nukem inspired videogame to measure the severity of depression.

The basis for this is that depression has been linked to a shrunken hippocampus, a region of the brain that plays a role in spatial memory. The idea is that if they get a videogame that can test spatial memory, they will be able to measure the severity of depression.

They used a videogame that was developed based on some scenes from Duke Nukem.

Participants of the test were asked to navigate through a virtual town and find their way to as many landmarks as possible within a set amount of time. It was found that depressed people found their way to an average of 2.4 locations compares with 3.8 locations for healthy controls. It was found that the more depressed a person was, the lower the score would be.

Gould hopes that the test may eventually be able to provide a quantifiable measure of depression.

Always finding yourself lost in Saint's Row or GTA? Cheer up emo boy.