Ohio State engineers trying to reverse suicide rates through technology

With suicides increasing at alarming rates in America, scientists at The Ohio State University are trying to reverse the trend through collaboration across scientific boundaries.

With a keen eye on adapting engineering and technology models toward mental health and wellness, faculty and students at Ohio State are already earning accolades for their research in this realm.

Ohio State Electrical and Computer Engineering PhD scholar Hugo Gonzalez Villasanti recently earned the highest honor given by the university to a student – a Presidential Fellowship.

Villasanti is developing a framework for technology-assisted neural and sensory stimulation therapies using virtual and augmented reality. Specifically, he is trying to find ways to treat depressive and bipolar disorders, which are dangerously pervasive worldwide.

“It’s so prevalent. It is costing society over $1 trillion worldwide per year. Think about $1 trillion per year, how many lives are lost to suicide. A multi-disciplinary perspective is needed to analyze this challenge,” he said.

Watch a short video of Hugo discussing his work in the lab.

According to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the suicide rate in the United States has increased 30 percent across all racial and ethnic groups since 1999, in both men and women, in both cities and rural areas, and across all age groups below 75. It was the 10th leading cause of death in the country in 2016, accounting for the loss of nearly 45,000 Americans over the age of 10. 

Villasanti said the goal is to find a pathway for people to better manage their stress, emotions and cognitive issues, by complementing success already made in the areas of pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy. 

“We want to offer people with mood disorders a way to understand the dynamics of their mental state," Villasanti said. "What affects their behavior? What triggers manic and depressive episodes and how can they prevent them? Once you analyze one topic you start to see connections with other mental health challenges. It’s narrow to think about depression, anxiety, bipolar, and others as discrete entities, but instead, it should be addressed from a holistic perspective."

Mood disorder treatment, Villasanti said, can really benefit from a control engineering perspective, through modeling and analysis of the main drivers of episodes, or incorporating non-invasive bio-signal sensory methods like virtual reality. Results could show therapeutic changes in a person, intended to last longer than medication. 

His dissertation work is geared toward analyzing and understanding the dynamics of symptoms and triggers, the interactions between vulnerabilities, stress, emotions, cognition, as well as the effects of psychotherapy and medicine. This information is personalized and delivered through video games, cognitive training or other routes.

“It’s very similar to psychoeducation,” he said. “Letting people learn how to identify and manage their issues.”

When he first came to Ohio State, Villasanti was focused heavily on traditional control systems engineering. It wasn’t until he began working with mentor and ECE Professor Kevin Passino did he truly see how his skills could easily adapt to many different scientific disciplines. 

Passino said Villasanti is now an integral member of his Technology 4 Mental Health research group and a leader in the subject matter.

"He is great at developing and evaluating sorely-needed novel perspectives on alternatives to current practices in therapy, ones that are non-invasive and science-based," he said.

Their previous work in developing apps to inform binge drinkers of their behavior and provide guidance in real time gained media attention in 2017. 

As a student at Ohio State, Villasanti said he couldn’t have found a better environment to work in. 

“I benefit from being here at Ohio State. It’s a such a big campus. The opportunities to collaborate are infinite. There are researchers in an incredible number of fields of study.” he said. “Sometimes we are addressing the same problems very differently – or even have identical perspectives – but we’re not talking to each other. I think Ohio State is a perfect ground to start breaking these barriers, thinking about how new knowledge can emerge from these different perspectives.”

Passino’s Technology 4 Mental Health group is exploring stress management and mindfulness, audio stimulation, along with mathematics. 

“We’re not trying to create technology they will be dependent upon – I just put on my virtual reality hat and problem solved,” Villasanti said. “No, we’re trying to provide tools for them to figure it out. That’s when the actual plastic changes in the brain occur. When you learn how to do something, the neuronal dynamics change in the brain, producing long lasting effects.”

The group is developing hardware for the accurate sensing of bio-signals in mental health, and then processing these signals to provide responsive stimuli to assist in managing distress. 

In total, five Buckeye engineering students earned Presidential Fellowships this year at Ohio State. The award honors the outstanding scholarly accomplishments and potential of graduate students entering the final phase of their dissertation research or terminal degree project.

Other winners included mechanical engineering students Ehsan Akbari and Hoda Hatoum, as well as biomedical engineering student Christopher Bobba, and computer science and engineering student Fei Wu.

Presidential Fellowships provide one year of full-time financial support so students can complete their dissertations or terminal degree projects unimpeded by other duties. Competitions are held during autumn and spring semesters. 

To learn more about the research, head to Technology 4 Mental Health online.

by Ryan Horns, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering