Advisory Board August 7, 2025
According to a new study published in Nature Neuroscience, even just looking at a sick person in virtual reality (VR) can trigger the body’s immune system, something the researchers described as being akin to a “smoke detector in biological systems.”
Study details and key findings
To understand how the brain helps prepare the body for an immune response, researchers conducted several experiments with 248 healthy participants who wore VR headsets. In each experiment, participants watched as three faces with neutral expressions repeatedly loomed toward them. The faces were of the same sex as the participants.
After this, participants were split into groups and shown the same three faces several times. Some groups saw the faces with a neutral expression,...
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