Virtual Reality: The Hidden Medical Innovation
June 26, 2023 | Raquel Paz Bergia | Neurology
Virtual Reality was released in the mid-1990s. This revolution in entertainment impacted society by creating an addictive technology that allowed users to experience video games inches from their eyes. This new marvel led to many hypotheses about its negative effects; many argued the effect on eyesight and on the brain. However, not many looked at the positives. Can virtual reality be used to treat neurological disorders?
Fast forward 20 years, studies are being conducted to evaluate the positive impacts of virtual reality. At UCLA, they learned that rats’ hippocampus activity increased exponentially when surrounded by VR technology. How can this be applied to human medical problems? Who can it help and how many people can it impact?
This article provides insight into the historical background of virtual reality, its impact on medical history, and future growth possibilities for virtual reality as a therapy.
Hippocampal Activity with Virtual Reality
The hippocampus is thought to be the cognitive map of the mind, and therefore it plays a major role in environment identification and episodic memory development. Episodic memories are those related to events that have happened to you, such as one’s wedding, the birth of one’s children, and other important life events.
Alzheimer’s disease is one that has large amounts of hippocampal damage that lead to memory loss and trouble recollecting episodic memory. A neurotypical person has high amounts of neural cells in the hippocampus, whilst AD patients automatically destroy the cells in this area.
Studies conducted surrounding virtual reality have concluded that the hippocampus radiates energy when placed around screens. At the University of California, it was stated that “all this indicates that scientists may be able to manipulate human brain rhythms in VR – not only to boost learning but also to treat memory-related disorders” (Ling). Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease could be largely influenced by the development of virtual reality as a medical therapeutical innovation.
Patients with ADHD or with depression could also be helped by this increase in hippocampal activity caused by virtual reality.
The Amygdala and Phobias
The amygdala is the area of the brain that produces key responses to fear-developing stimuli. People that have phobias have increased activity in the amygdala. This also occurs to patients with anxiety, as anxiety is a stress-producing psychological disorder.
A study conducted for the Journal of Clinical Medicine stated that “VR can be useful as an exposure technique similar to real imaging,” when comparing VR and RI as a form of phobia analysis.
Events occurring in VR can result in brain activity that doesn’t differentiate reality from fantasy. Fear is processed as fear, happiness as happiness, and sadness as sadness. This inability to separate the two helps the brain continue development and enhance damaged cells.
Virtual Reality as a Therapeutic Treatment
Studies conducted since the development of virtual reality have concluded that brain activity increases with VR. This increase of brain activity mainly affects the hippocampus and amygdala, but also provides help for the prefrontal cortex, where information gets processed.
Virtual reality can be used as a therapeutical technique to help increase brain activity in areas that may be damaged. For Alzheimer’s patients, images could be displayed on the VR, allowing increased hippocampal activity and increased memory recognition.