Dr. Brennan M. Spiegel and his research team at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center have been experimenting with virtual reality (VR) for years. I had a fruitful and very exciting correspondence with him about moments of immersion, virtual pharmacies or how to travel to Iceland without leaving your hospital bed. Read on! VR is an area of...
Tag: <span>Virtual Reality</span>
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Virtual reality reduces phantom pain in paraplegics
Virtual reality reduces phantom body pain in paraplegics and creates the illusion that they can feel their paralyzed legs being touched again. The results could one day translate into therapies to reduce chronic pain in paraplegics. In breakthrough research led by neuroscientist Olaf Blanke and his team at EPFL, Switzerland, the scientists show that phantom...
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Use of virtual reality in improving poststroke neglect: Promising neuropsychological and neurophysiological findings from a case study
After experiencing a stroke in the right hemisphere, almost 50% of patients show unilateral spatial neglect (USN). Virtual Reality technologies offer impressive opportunities for both the rehabilitation and assessment of different cognitive deficits, including USN. A 57-year-old woman, affected by subarachnoid hemorrhage presented a severe left hemiparesis with severe cognitive and behavioral alterations, including temporal...
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Virtual Reality Used to Study Origin of Fear and Anxiety
Our irrational fears are both very real and are also figments of our imagination. By manipulating what we think of as reality, researchers at Stanford University are working to understand the source of our anxieties and how to alleviate them. In order to do so, they built a virtual reality chamber where one’s fears can...
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Scientists launch virtual reality game to detect Alzheimer’s
Sea Quest Hero is more than just the usual computer game in which players find their way through mazes, shoot and chase creatures—it also doubles as scientists’ latest tool for studying Alzheimer’s disease. The game—downloadable from Tuesday in its virtual reality version—seeks to stimulate players’ brains through a series of tasks based on memory and...
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How VR is Changing the Way We Think About Therapy
“It was an idea whose time had come, and the technology finally caught up with the vision.” -Albert “Skip” Rizzo, Ph.D. If you’re at all familiar with VR, you’ve probably heard that VR is more than “just games” a time or two. Used to describe applications of VR that go beyond first-person shooters—think education, conservation,...
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Neurable’s experimental gear controls VR with … your mind
I’ve used my eyes to interact with a virtual world before, but startup Neurable just enhanced that experience by reading my thoughts too. At Siggraph this week, the Boston-based startup is showing its modified HTC Vive which include EEG (Electroencephalography) sensors along the interior of the headstrap. This is combined with eye-tracking technology from German firm SMI, which may...
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This Is How We Will Reduce Anxiety In The Future
Stressed Out Every year, the world around us moves a little faster, and it’s easy to stumble and get stressed out as we try to catch up with it. Almost every fifth person in the United States has an anxiety disorder, costing the country more than $42 billion a year. Nearly half of those who suffer from...
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Virtual Reality Helps Reverse Complete Paralysis Post Spinal Cord Injury
Remember the paralyzed man who kicked off the 2014 World Cup in Brazil while using an exoskeleton? That was possible thanks to the lab of Miguel Nicolelis, M.D., Ph.D. at Duke University from where we now get even more exciting news. A small group of individuals paralyzed due to spinal cord injury have managed to regain some control, as...
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This Mom Used VR to Open Up New Worlds for Her Son
Despite the limitations of his body, now he can use VR to see the world. Tim Bartow is a filmmaker and writer hailing from Kansas City, Missouri. As one of only 100 Americans affected by the extremely rare genetic disorder Lesch Nyhan, which results in celebral palsy, Tim uses a wheelchair. Though Tim has no cognitive impairments, people often assume that...