Immersive Virtual Environments in Cue Exposure

Abstract

Cue reactivity to drug-related stimuli is a frequently observed phenomenon in drug addiction. Cue reactivity refers to a classical conditioned response pattern that occurs when an addicted subject is exposed to drug-related stimuli. This response consists of physiological and cognitive reactions. Craving, a subjective desire to use the drug of choice, is believed to play an important role in the occurrence of relapse in the natural setting. Besides craving, other subjective cue-elicited reactions have been reported, including withdrawal symptoms, drug-agonistic effects, and mood swings. Physiological reactions that have been investigated include skin conductance, heart rate, salivation, and body temperature. Conditioned reactivity to cues is an important factor in addiction to alcohol, nicotine, opiates, and cocaine. Cue exposure treatment (CET) refers to a manualized, repeated exposure to drug-related cues, aimed at the reduction of cue reactivity by extinction. In CET, different stimuli are presented, for example, slides, video tapes, pictures, or paraphernalia in nonrealistic, experimental settings. Most often assessments consist in subjective ratings by craving scales. Our pilot study will show that immersive virtual reality (IVR) is as good or even better in eliciting subjective and physiological craving symptoms as classical devices.

Applications of 3D Simulation in Mental Health: Utilities and New Developments

“…This was also found for use of methamphetamines on the Internet using the online platform Second Life (Culbertson, et al, 2010). Finally, we just point out that these results have also been validated in VR situations for other types of substance, such as cannabis (Bordnick et al, 2009) or heroine (Kuntze et al, 2001). For example, the study on cannabis used two scenarios showing key objects associated with it use, in which one of them showed different objects or paraphernalia related to use of cannabis, while in the other situation, animated characters were observed consuming cannabis.…”

Withdrawal Symptoms and Nicotine Dependence Severity Predict Virtual Reality Craving in Cigarette-Deprived Smokers

“…11 Although craving may be induced by individual cues, the reality is that craving generally arises because of a complex association of emotional, environmental, autobiographical, and sensory information. To generate a more realistic craving state, recent studies have begun to use dynamic and complex virtual environments, 1,[12][13][14] which allow users to navigate through the environment and become fully immersed in it. These multifaceted three-dimensional (3D) environments are designed to recreate settings where drug use is likely to occur, employing techniques such as interaction with avatars and presenting explicit drug or drug-associated stimuli.…”

Virtual Reality in Evidence-Based Psychotherapy

“…Similar results were reported by Culbertson and colleagues (2010) in a group of methamphetamine users. VR drug cueing systems have also been developed for tobacco, cannabis and heroin (Baumann & Sayette, 2006;Bordnick et al, 2009;Kuntze et al, 2001). These systems allow an accurate and individual assessment of factors that induce craving and drug-use behavior and provide the opportunity of designing and testing treatments for drug addiction (Culbertson et al, 2010).…”