Studies have found that VR can treat a variety of brain injuries. Is wearing VR more effective than painkillers？
Scholars are studying how virtual reality can help treat traumatic stress syndrome, anorexia nervosa and anxiety.
Researchers have found that virtual reality (VR) is not only a popular video game, but also can be applied to medical treatment.
It has been proved that it has the function of "trauma recovery"
"What can the virtual reality displayed by head-mounted devices bring to people?" Professor Skip Rizzo, the head of the medical virtual reality program at the School of Creative Technology of the University of Southern California, said, "It can immerse people in a controllable simulation environment, thus helping them overcome their fears or face the trauma of the past."
Rizzo began to study the potential medical applications of virtual reality in 1990s. His early research explored the role of simulated game environment in brain trauma recovery. After the success of this research, he began to study other medical applications. At present, he has proved that virtual reality can help to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), eating disorder, depression and attention deficit disorder.
Virtual reality is the most effective treatment for PTSD. PTSD patients generally relieve their illness by staying away from the causes of anxiety, fear, memories and thoughts related to traumatic events. However, such measures can only provide short-term protection. In the long run, it strengthens the cognition that these incentives are harmful, making it more difficult for patients to recover.
In order to overcome this difficulty, psychologists invented an extremely effective step-by-step contact therapy. This therapy requires patients to recall traumatic events gradually and repeatedly. The principle is that through this imaginary contact, the problem patient can deal with the emotions related to traumatic events and realize that there is nothing to be afraid of.
The key to this therapy is to rely on imagination. But can people really recall traumatic experiences clearly and effectively? What about those who are unwilling or unable to remember?
So virtual reality appeared.
This technology does not make people imagine scenes or events, but "teleports" the user safely from the comfortable bench in front of the doctor to another space.
Advantages and disadvantages of virtual reality interventional therapy
Rizzo believes that the benefits of virtual reality interventional therapy are manifold. It circumvents the human tendency to escape, and at the same time "deceives" the brain to believe that this exposure is true.
According to Rizzo, the frontal lobe of the brain knows that this is only a simulation, but the limbic system, that is, the fight-and-flight area, can respond in an immersive way. "This is what we are trying to achieve. We try to activate fear, and at the same time there is no actual bad thing to break the conditional cycle. " He said, "This is the charm of this technology. It allows people to interact with what they fear on the cognitive level, while the brain can respond immersively. "
Like all exposure therapies, VR therapy makes patients get used to this kind of stimulation or a certain scene gradually, so as to ensure that they will not encounter secondary trauma.
But the patient’s wishes are still important. Because even if informed consent is obtained and the process is gradual, there is still evidence that long-term exposure to incentives — — This practice is considered as the "gold standard" therapy for PTSD — — It may also do more harm than good to some patients.
According to Slate, the researchers found that this therapy led some veterans to have a tendency of violence, suicide and depression. The relationship between this phenomenon and exposure therapy based on virtual reality is not clear.
Rizzo’s lab works with many soldiers or veterans with PTSD. His research shows that virtual reality therapy is more effective than traditional therapy. For example, in a study in 2014, 20 active soldiers received an average of 11 virtual reality immersion sessions each. Among them, 16 soldiers no longer suffered from PTSD after receiving treatment, and the symptoms of PTSD in each of these 20 soldiers were reduced by 50%.
The application scope is constantly expanding.
A study in January 2019 found that this therapy is also very effective for trauma in the military. By the end of the treatment, 53% of the veterans were diagnosed with PTSD, and three months later, the number dropped to 33%.
Other studies have also found that virtual reality can also help treat victims of car accidents and citizens and rescuers involved in the World Trade Center attack.
Based on the same principle, this technology is also effective in treating disorders such as anxiety and anorexia: exposing patients to what they fear, so that they can gradually overcome their escape behavior.
Dr Giuseppe Riva found that the immersive nature of virtual reality even helps to treat eating disorders. As a professor of psychology at the Catholic University of Milan, Italy, and the chief researcher of the neuropsychological technology application laboratory, Riva first wore a virtual reality helmet in 1995. A wonderful feeling hit him: he couldn’t feel his body. At that time, he was studying anorexia nervosa, which, in his view, was a "disorder of body sensation". He began to think about whether letting patients with eating disorders experience virtual reality environment can help them overcome this disease.
In the following years, Riva developed a "realistic" virtual reality experience. In this experience, patients with cognitive disorder of body size can live in another body with different sizes. This "materialization" can alleviate the cognitive disorder of anorexia patients. According to Riva, the working principle of this technology is that due to cognitive dissonance of body size, the brain simulates a larger body than it actually is. To correct this cognition, we can "cheat" it with the real simulation that the brain can’t predict and make it change its cognition.
"When you enter another body, your brain will be shocked because it can’t predict and act." He said, "This forces the brain to recalculate the experience of the body."
Riva is also studying how virtual reality can treat bulimia. Because of the failure of the mechanism connecting food cognition and eating desire in the brain, people with bulimia can’t stop craving for food. In order to help patients overcome this mechanism, Riva invented an immersive virtual reality environment. In this environment, people are exposed to the food they crave. By simulating food, the subjects have to resist the desire to eat them, thus slowly learning to separate the cognition of food from the desire to eat.
This interventional therapy is more effective than traditional behavioral therapy in inhibiting bulimia. Riva believes that this is because virtual reality has a far-reaching impact on people compared with simple language.
"Virtual reality directly affects emotional and cognitive mechanisms, and these mechanisms are the basis of human emotions and cognition." He said, "Cognitive behavioral therapy is more suitable for correcting the understanding of specific emotions and feelings. Only by changing both at the same time can the therapeutic effect be achieved. "
So far, all these medical applications have been confined to the laboratory. With the gradual popularization of this technology, research will continue to prove its efficacy. Rizzo and Riva said that they have seen that in the near future, doctors all over the world will use virtual reality technology. At the same time, both researchers clearly pointed out that virtual reality will not "replace" traditional therapy, but "assist" it.
"People will say, ‘ Oh, all treatments will be done in virtual reality. ’ But this view misses the point. It is just out of the enthusiasm for virtual reality. " Rizzo said, "We can clearly distinguish between deception and enlightening ideas. Research will record something really valuable. "
Zhang Jingying Dong Yucan/Compiled