A photo from open sources
Neurologist David Linden recently announced that, it turns out, our the brain has more pain control than we can imagine imagine. If our brain really has something truly interestingly, he can “muffle” the pain so as not to pay attention to it main focus. It turns out that our perception of pain depends on brain, namely – from how it processes information, coming from the nervous system.
American researchers are currently trying determine whether human perception of pain can be manipulated using virtual games. A group was invited for this purpose. patients suffering from severe burns. They were invited to play SnowWorld (a virtual computer game developed by cognitive psychologists). Since with burns, relieve pain with using morphine can only be at rest, motivation psychologists – during daily dressings and cleaning wounds to convince patient’s brain ignore pain signals in favor of more attractive scenarios.
The most famous patient who relieves pain from burns with SnowWorld games, is Lieutenant Sam Brown. Lieutenant received third degree burns when in Afghanistan. Damage Sam’s skin was so serious that he was immersed in medical coma for several weeks. Back in the USA, Brown survived more than two dozen painful operations, however none of it was not comparable with the torment experienced by daily wound care rituals. According to statistics, burn care comparable in pain to the initial injury.
As it turned out, not new species helped ease Sam’s torment medicines and dressings, and a virtual video game. Brown was one of the first participants in the SnowWorld pilot study, which developed in conjunction with the U.S. military to verify can video games really help relieve the pain of the wounded to the soldiers.
At the time of the experiment, it was already known that a sense of pain can be manipulated with strong emotions. To distract patient attention and thereby significantly reduce pain sensations, psychologists have developed a special video game. On the the patients participating in the experiment donned virtual headsets and headphones, and then launched a program that creates the illusion reality of what is happening. So people were transported to a fascinating world where they fly over ice canyons, throw snowballs, watch flocks of penguins, shaggy mammoths and stuff. As a result, patients were so passionate a game that they even stopped noticing what was happening at the same time ligation procedure.
Pilot study showed promising results. In some cases, the SnowWorld video game acted on humans are more effective than morphine. For example, Lieutenant Brown in the present is completely healthy, and attributes most of this credit for an exciting video game experience.
Experts are sure that in the near future virtual reality will help distract from pain not only burn sick, but also people suffering from other serious diseases.
Time
