How does virtual reality affect the brain? The answer may surprise you.

When neurophysics from the University of California at Los Angeles decided to find out what was going on in the brain under the influence of virtual reality , they were surprised: the brain reacts quite differently in virtual reality and in the real world.

Scientists have investigated the brain's hippocampus, the part that suffers from disorders like Alzheimer's disease, stroke, depression, schizophrenia, and epilepsy. The hippocampus is also important for memory formation and helps the brain create mental maps of rooms so that we can move around them properly.
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It is these mental maps that scientists used in their research. Although it is not yet clear what causes the brain to create such maps, we know that they are based not only on landmarks. In the real world, the brain also uses smells and sounds to move in space.

So what happens when you create an environment without smells and sounds, such as virtual reality ? This is what the researchers tested on rats, creating virtual reality using large screens and simulators, studying the hippocampal neurons of their brain .

They also studied the behavior of rats in a real room, similar to a virtual reality room.

The test results were amazing: the rat hippocampal neurons reacted quite differently in the virtual reality environment and in the real world. In the world of virtual reality, they became activated randomly, suggesting that the rats do not know where they are, although the animals moved in a virtual environment almost as much as in a real situation.

“The map has completely disappeared,” says Mehta Mayank, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles. “Nobody expected this. The activity of neurons was random with respect to the position of the rat in the virtual world.”

The researchers also found that the hippocampal neurons were very active when the rat was in the real world. And in virtual reality only about half of the neurons were involved.

They also studied other brain cells, comparing what happens in virtual reality and the real world in relation to memory . As for memory, there are groups of neurons in the brain that interact in two different languages ​​simultaneously: rhythm and intensity.





In the virtual world, the “language” of a rhythm is similar to a similar language in the real world, but BP disrupts its intensity.

Rhythms are very important in the process of memorization: people with diseases that affect memory , can have malfunctions in the language of rhythm in the brain. Researchers suggest that using virtual reality might help trigger memory work for those who suffer from memory- affecting diseases.

“The neurons involved in the memory processes interact with other parts of the hippocampus as part of the orchestra,” Mehta says. “For the violinist and the trumpeter playing in the orchestra, it’s not enough to play your music flawlessly. They should also be perfectly synchronized with other instruments.”

Of course, the brain is a complex machine, and we really do not fully understand how it works. But it is possible that one day, thanks to such research, we will understand how to solve the problems affecting it.