A trip into virtual reality may literally take a person’s mind off the pain of a medical procedure, a new study shows.

Scientists found that slipping into a computer-generated world not only lessened how much pain volunteers felt during an uncomfortable procedure, it also dampened activity in the brain’s pain centers.

The findings provide the first objective evidence that virtual reality can act as an analgesic by “distracting” the brain from processing pain signals from the body, study co-author Dr. Hunter G. Hoffman told Reuters Health.

Hoffman, who directs the Virtual Reality Analgesia Research Center at the University of Washington in Seattle, and his colleagues had previously found that patients immersed in virtual reality report far less discomfort during painful medical procedures.

The new findings, published in the journal NeuroReport, show the benefit is not just a matter of perception, but of actual changes in the brain’s pain-related activity.

Virtual reality, by drawing a person into another world, “drains conscious attention” away from processing pain signals, Hoffman explained.

For the study, he and his colleagues exposed eight men to short bursts of painful but tolerable heat to the foot. The participants were outfitted with specially designed virtual reality helmets that allowed brain scans to be taken while the men were “inside” their computer-generated environment.

Participants went through the procedure while looking at a no-frills focal point and when immersed in a virtual world that had them sailing through a winter wonderland, lobbing snowballs at the virtual residents of SnowWorld.

During the virtual reality tour, the researchers found, the men’s perceptions of pain were much dimmer; they spent less time thinking about pain and the “unpleasantness” of the experience was diminished.

At the same time, Hoffman said, “there was a big drop in pain-related brain activity.”

The researcher and his colleagues have already used virtual reality technology to help ease the intense pain of wound care for burn victims. Since burn care is so excruciating, Hoffman noted, any analgesia that works for these patients is likely to help control pain from a range of conditions.

“I do think VR has enormous potential,” he said.

And the potential goes beyond pain control, according to Hoffman. He’s also collaborating with other researchers to study how well virtual reality helps treat phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder.

SOURCE: NeuroReport, June 2004.