Real-Time Monitoring of Brain Activity in Patients with Specific Phobia during Exposure Therapy, Employing a Stereoscopic Virtual Environment

Abstract

Exposure therapy is a behavioral technique that is reported to be the most effective, long-lasting treatment for patients suffering from specific phobia. During the performance in enclosed spaces, the patients show a strong psychophysiological response to the phobic stimulus that is normally avoided. This psychophysiological response changes characteristically during the course of exposure. We implemented an electroencephalographic monitoring focusing on event-related potentials to resolve the modulation of preattentive information processing by the anxiety state of the subject. Therefore, mismatch-negativity (MMN) was chosen as parameter using a passive auditory oddball paradigm that does not interfere with performance in the virtual environment. The results of this neurophysiological monitoring are demonstrated in one patient suffering from claustrophobia.

Modeling anxiety in healthy humans: a key intermediate bridge between basic and clinical sciences

“…As a measure of sensory perception and auditory discrimination, the MMN provides a window into the state of vigilance of the brain (142,143). Consistent with this view, the MMN is abnormally elevated in a number of anxiety-related disorders, including PTSD (136,137), panic disorder (138), and phobia (144). These findings support brain's heightened sensitivity to environmental changes in these patient populations (i.e., hypervigilance).…”

The role of psychophysiology in forensic assessments: Deception detection, ERPs, and virtual reality mock crime scenarios

“…Because integration of a virtual reality (VR) component into ERP research is a relatively novel approach, concerns that the use of this technology may be related to the aberrant findings warrant consideration. Although research on the effects of virtual environments (VE) is scant (Mager, Bullinger, Mueller-Spahn, Kuntze, & Stoermer, 2001;Mager, Bullinger, Roessler, Mueller-Spahn, & Stoermer, 2000), data suggest that ERPs in response to VE are not different from ERPs in naturalistic settings. Moreover, the present study utilized a mixed design, with the VE only being used to encode a minority of probe items; most probes were learned via a standard reading task.…”

Some Practical Considerations of Ethical Issues in VR Research

“…The American Psychological Association has released a code of conduct that is relevant to today's research in psychology and communication (APA, 2002). It is suited for research on presence and VR as well, since the experiences investigated in studies using VR systems often target phenomena such as presence experiences (Steuer, 1992;Lombard & Ditton, 1997;Draper, Kaber, & Usher, 1998) and the behavior and reaction of people in virtual environments (Fencott, van Schaik, Ling, & Shafiullah, 2003;Mager, Bullinger, Mueller-Spahn, Kuntze, & Stoermer, 2001). VR research caused various innovations in psychological experimental research, for example in studies on human perception and on data processing (Huber, Krist, & Wilkening, 2003;Zyss, 1997).…”