Evaluating Psychological Effects of Amputation Through Virtual Reality Embodiment: A Study on Anxiety and Body Appreciation.

: A high number of patients who suffer the amputation of a lower limb will present psychological problems such as anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder after surgery. This study embodies participants in a self-avatar with a right lower-limb amputation in a virtual reality environment. The aim was to determine if this experience increases anxiety levels compared to embodiment in a normal avatar.

The Moderating Effect of Suggestibility on the Relationship between Body Mass Index and Body Dissatisfaction in Women.

: Body dissatisfaction (BD) has been consistently linked to adverse consequences on mental health and overall well-being, and is recognized as a significant contributing factor in the initiation and persistence of eating disorders (EDs). Empirical evidence has demonstrated that an elevated body mass index (BMI) and media influence and pressure about a thin ideal heighten the risk of subsequent BD. Moreover, suggestibility, a propensity to accept and act upon messages without critical evaluation, has been shown to be positively associated with greater susceptibility to the influence of sociocultural messages that endorse the thin ideal.

. Preliminary findings from a group-based digital therapeutics intervention for fibromyalgia.

Introduction: Fibromyalgia (FM) is a disorder characterized by chronic pain, with significant medical, psychological, and socio-economic implications. Although there is limited evidence, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) has shown to be effective in improving FM symptoms. An alternative to enhance CBT effectiveness is to incorporate digital therapeutics (DTx).

Exploring Attentional Bias toward Alcohol Content: Insights from Eye-Movement Activity.

Introduction: Attentional bias (AB) is an implicit selective attention toward processing disorder-significant information while neglecting other environmental cues. Considerable empirical evidence highlights the clinical implication of AB in the onset and maintenance of substance use disorder. An innovative method to explore direct measures of AB relies on the eye-movement activity using technologies like eye-tracking (ET).

Virtual reality exposure with vibrotactile stimulation for the treatment of fear of flying: A pilot study.

Background And Objectives: Virtual reality (VR) interventions are becoming more prevalent in treating fear of flying (FoF). Since multisensory stimulation can enhance the sense of presence in a virtual environment, the present study compared virtual reality exposure with and without vibrotactile cues to determine its contribution to the realism of the virtual experience.

Methods: A repeated measures design was used.

Attentional Bias Modification Training Based on Virtual Reality and Eye Tracking in Anorexia Nervosa Patients.

Anorexia nervosa (AN) patients exhibit attentional bias (AB) related to the body, which is the tendency to pay greater attention to weight-related body areas compared to non-weight-related ones. This phenomenon has been linked to elevated levels of body dissatisfaction (BD) and may potentially reduce the effectiveness of body exposure therapy. The purpose of this pilot study is to assess the efficacy of a single session of a new body-related AB modification task (ABMT) that combines virtual reality with eye tracking in patients with AN.

Body Dissatisfaction and Body-Related Attentional Bias: Is There a Causal Relationship?

Previous research has shown an association between body dissatisfaction and attentional biases toward the body, but the nature of this relationship is not clear. It is possible that dissatisfaction causes attentional bias or that dissatisfaction is a result of such bias. To clarify the causal relationship between these two variables, this study manipulated dissatisfaction in a sample of healthy women by exposing them to images of "ideal" bodies and observed whether this manipulation increased attentional biases toward different body parts.

Modification of Body-Related Attentional Bias through Virtual Reality and Eye-Tracking in Healthy Participants: Implications for Anorexia Nervosa Treatments.

Cognitive biases have a significant impact on the etiology and treatment of eating disorders (EDs). These biases, including selective attentional bias (AB) to disliked body parts, may reinforce concerns about body shape, fear of gaining weight and body image disturbances and may contribute to dietary restriction and restraint. Decreasing AB could reduce core symptoms in anorexia nervosa (AN).

An Attentional Bias Modification Task, through Virtual Reality and Eye-Tracking Technologies, to Enhance the Treatment of Anorexia Nervosa.

Mirror exposure therapies (METs) have been shown to be effective in reducing body image disturbances through the habituation process. Virtual reality (VR) combined with eye-tracking techniques can provide innovative solutions to some of METs' limitations reported with patients with anorexia nervosa (AN), especially the negative influence of body-related attentional bias (AB). This pilot study aimed to assess the preliminary efficacy of a new VR-based AB modification task (ABMT) among healthy women and the procedure's user experience.

A single-session Mindfulness-Based Swinging Technique vs. cognitive disputation intervention among women with breast cancer: A pilot randomised controlled study examining the efficacy at 8-week follow-up.

Objective: Previously Mindfulness-Based Swinging Technique (MBST)'s immediate efficacy for overcoming psychological concerns has recently received empirical support, yet its longer-term efficacy needed to be evaluated among women with breast cancer. The objective of this study was to assess and report the efficacy of MBST intervention among breast cancer patients for hopelessness, anxiety, depression, self-efficacy, oxygen (SpO) intensity, and heart rate-beats per minute (HR-bpm) at an 8-week period.

Method: The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, The Emotion Thermometer, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Self-Efficacy for Managing Chronic Disease, and Beck's Hopelessness Scale were used for assessing the intervention's outcome; 149 BC patients were randomly assigned into two groups (equal-mean-age, = 0.

The Use of Virtual Reality Technology in the Treatment of Psychopathological Disorders.

Jaron Lanier proposed the name "Virtual Reality" to refer to interactive simulations produced through the use of computer technology, although the idea was formulated in the sixties by a pioneer of computer graphics, Ivan Sutherland [...

Efficacy of New Mindfulness-Based Swinging Technique Intervention: A Pilot Randomised Controlled Trial Among Women With Breast Cancer.

Objective: Combining 3rd-wave-therapies with Cognitive-Behavioural-Therapy (CBT) has increased in recent years. Usually these therapies require longer sessions which therefore increases the psychotherapy drop-out rate for cancer patients for multiple medical reasons. This inspired intervention of a shorter 20 min-long mindfulness-therapy (MBST) to be developed for Breast-Cancer-patients (BC).

Determinants of Cue-Elicited Alcohol Craving and Perceived Realism in Virtual Reality Environments among Patients with Alcohol Use Disorder.

The identification of variables that can modulate the efficacy of cue exposure using virtual reality (VR) is crucial. This study aimed to explore determinant variables of cue-elicited alcohol craving and perceived realism (PR) of environments and alcoholic beverages during a VR cue-exposure session among alcohol use disorder (AUD) outpatients. A prospective cohort study was conducted amongst 72 outpatients with AUD from a clinical setting.

Attentional Bias, Alcohol Craving, and Anxiety Implications of the Virtual Reality Cue-Exposure Therapy in Severe Alcohol Use Disorder: A Case Report.

: Attentional bias (AB), alcohol craving, and anxiety have important implications in the development and maintenance of alcohol use disorder (AUD). The current study aims to test the effectiveness of a Virtual Reality Cue-Exposure Therapy (VR-CET) to reduce levels of alcohol craving and anxiety and prompt changes in AB toward alcohol content. : A 49-year-old male participated in this study, diagnosed with severe AUD, who also used tobacco and illicit substances on an occasional basis and who made several failed attempts to cease substance misuse.

AN-VR-BE. A Randomized Controlled Trial for Reducing Fear of Gaining Weight and Other Eating Disorder Symptoms in Anorexia Nervosa through Virtual Reality-Based Body Exposure.

In vivo body exposure therapy is considered an effective and suitable intervention to help patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) reduce their body image disturbances (BIDs). However, these interventions have notable limitations and cannot effectively reproduce certain fears usually found in AN, such as the fear of gaining weight (FGW). The latest developments in virtual reality (VR) technology and embodiment-based procedures could overcome these limitations and allow AN patients to confront their FGW and BIDs.

COVID Feel Good-An Easy Self-Help Virtual Reality Protocol to Overcome the Psychological Burden of Coronavirus.

Background: Living in the time of the COVID-19 means experiencing not only a global health emergency but also extreme psychological stress with potential emotional side effects such as sadness, grief, irritability, and mood swings. Crucially, lockdown and confinement measures isolate people who become the first and the only ones in charge of their own mental health: people are left alone facing a novel and potentially lethal situation, and, at the same time, they need to develop adaptive strategies to face it, at home. In this view, easy-to-use, inexpensive, and scientifically validated self-help solutions aiming to reduce the psychological burden of coronavirus are extremely necessary.

Validity of Virtual Reality Body Exposure to Elicit Fear of Gaining Weight, Body Anxiety and Body-Related Attentional Bias in Patients with Anorexia Nervosa.

Fear of gaining weight (FGW), body image disturbances, associated anxiety and body-related attentional bias are the core symptoms of anorexia nervosa (AN) and play critical roles in its development and maintenance. The aim of the current study is to evaluate the usefulness of virtual reality-based body exposure software for the assessment of important body-related cognitive and emotional responses in AN. Thirty female patients with AN, one of them subclinical, and 43 healthy college women, 25 with low body dissatisfaction (BD) and 18 with high BD, owned a virtual body that had their silhouette and body mass index.

Predictors of Changes in Alcohol Craving Levels during a Virtual Reality Cue Exposure Treatment among Patients with Alcohol Use Disorder.

Background/objective: Determining the predictive variables associated with levels of alcohol craving can ease the identification of patients who can benefit from treatments. This study aimed to describe changes (improvement or no change/deterioration) in alcohol craving levels and explore the predictors of these changes from admission to discharge in outpatients with alcohol use disorder (AUD) undergoing treatment-as-usual (TAU), or treatment-as-usual supplemented with virtual reality cue-exposure therapy (TAU + VR-CET).

Method: A prospective cohort study was conducted amongst 42 outpatients with AUD (n = 15 TAU + VR-CET and n = 27 TAU) from a clinical setting.

Body-Related Attentional Bias among Men with High and Low Muscularity Dissatisfaction.

Previous studies have found gender differences in body-related attentional bias (AB), with women showing AB towards weight-related body parts. However, few studies have assessed the relationship between body-related AB and muscularity dissatisfaction (MD) in men. This study aimed to assess the presence of muscle-related AB in men, using a combination of a virtual reality (VR) embodiment-based technique and eye-tracking (ET) technology.

Virtual Reality Body Exposure Therapy for Anorexia Nervosa. A Case Report With Follow-Up Results.

Objective: Exposure-based therapies such as mirror exposure may help to improve the results of classic cognitive behavioral therapy in anorexia nervosa (AN). Virtual reality (VR)-based procedures provide interesting novelties for targeting body-related concerns. This study aimed to provide preliminary evidence of the usefulness of a VR body exposure therapy in a patient diagnosed with AN.

Body-related attentional bias as mediator of the relationship between body mass index and body dissatisfaction.

Body image disturbance, consisting of an affective (body dissatisfaction) and perceptual (body distortion) component, is not only found in eating disorders, but is also present in healthy individuals, affecting their psychological well-being and everyday life. A higher body mass index is associated with higher body dissatisfaction, whereas results in relation to body distortion are mixed. Furthermore, body dissatisfaction is associated with a weight-related attentional bias.

Cue-Elicited Anxiety and Alcohol Craving as Indicators of the Validity of ALCO-VR Software: A Virtual Reality Study.

Background: This study is part of a larger project aiming to develop a virtual reality (VR) software to be implemented as a clinical tool for patients diagnosed with alcohol use disorder (AUD). The study is based on previous research in which we identified factors that elicit craving for alcohol in a sample of AUD patients, and which led to the development of a virtual reality software to be used in cue exposure treatments of alcohol use disorder (ALCO-VR). The main objective of this study was to test the effectiveness of ALCO-VR to elicit cue-induced craving and anxiety responses among social drinkers (SD) and AUD patients.

The influence of gender and body dissatisfaction on body-related attentional bias: An eye-tracking and virtual reality study.

Objective: In the attentional bias (AB) phenomenon, eating disorder (ED) patients show a tendency to pay more attention to self-attributed unattractive body parts than to other body parts. However, little research has focused on gender differences in body-related attention, controlling for body dissatisfaction (BD). This study aimed to assess gender differences in AB toward specific weight- or nonweight-related body parts using a virtual reality (VR)-based embodiment technique and an eye-tracking AB assessment.

Is This My Own Body? Changing the Perceptual and Affective Body Image Experience among College Students Using a New Virtual Reality Embodiment-Based Technique.

Body image disturbances (BIDs) have been widely studied using virtual reality (VR) devices that induce a full body illusion (FBI) and allow manipulation of the individual's perceptual and affective experiences of the body. This study aimed to assess whether the induction of the FBI over a virtual body would produce changes in body-related anxiety and BIDs using a new whole-body visuo-tactile stimulation procedure. Fifty non-clinical participants were randomly assigned to synchronous or asynchronous visuo-tactile groups.

Identifying Triggers of Alcohol Craving to Develop Effective Virtual Environments for Cue Exposure Therapy.

Many studies have indicated that alcohol craving is a core mechanism in the acquisition, maintenance, and precipitation of relapse in alcohol use disorder (AUD). A common treatment approach in AUD is cue exposure therapy (CET). New technologies like virtual reality (VR) have the potential to enhance the effectiveness of CET by creating realistic scenarios in naturalistic environments.