The “fight-or-flight response” that is so vital to survival has come into play for a scientific study based in Switzerland. The catch: the threat is simulated and processed in an anticipatory way inside the brain.
Using virtual reality (VR) headsets, a team of scientists observed how participants’ immune systems reacted to avatars showing signs of illness. The results are magnificent.
Virtual Threats
The scientists learned that visual imagery can in fact activate our brains, and turn on our immune systems, without ever being exposed to infectious pathogens. The study provides insight into whether neural responses could anticipate potential infections, then signal the immune system to respond. The focus group simply required a potential for contact with approaching infectious avatars, but never direct contact.
The healthy subjects wore gaming headsets to immerse them in a 3-D virtual reality landscape with avatars that merely walked towards them. These avatars had a variety of facial expressions–some looked neutral and calm while others looked fearful, but some had visible signs of illness. The illness was indicated by common signs like coughing, skin rashes, sweating or fatigue.
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Seeing the Science
Since contact with a pathogen in real life might mean it’s too late for the immune system to react, this study questioned whether anticipatory neural responses might sense potential infections and prime the immune system for a response. To trigger specific responses associated with virtual infection threats, a set of avatars was created to show clear signs of infection.
Two control conditions–neutral and fearful avatars–were utilized along with the infectious avatars. Researchers questioned if subjects who were approached by the infectious avatars would have activated lymphoid cells in their immune system, so blood sampling illustrated their findings.
They tested whether infectious avatars induced a specific response in the brain. The hypothesis: potential contact with approaching infectious avatars entering the peri-personal space in virtual reality would be anticipated by multi-sensory–motor areas that activated the salience network. It had to be measured with psychophysics, electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
Real Results
Participants were asked to respond as fast as possible to a perceived stimulation on their face while an avatar face was shown as approaching in immersive VR. Changes in both the frequency and activation of innate lymphoid cells actually mirrored responses seen in real infections.
Brain areas sensed infection threats early. This was illustrated by neurophysiological markers of early detection of virtual infection compared to neutral stimuli. However, the cellular response did not occur when the subjects were approached by avatars with neutral expressions and non-infected avatars.
Test subjects were never exposed to any infection, but the possibility of simulated contact did trigger a real immune response. The fact that this response was elicited only by the infected avatars, but not the fearful or neutral avatars, suggested that this is a specific response to potential infection. Ultimately, it showed that visual imagery could help activate the immune system in ways beyond the capabilities of over-the-counter medicine.
