Healing ViaVirtual Reality

Where is your brain — in your knee, or what?! A dear friend of mine would exclaim thus, exasperatedly, when I failed to see the light. Curiously, I learnt from an article in a science magazine that there could be a deep connection between knee and brain, more than as instructor-actor. When you injure your knee, say, a ligament tear while playing a sport, your knee injury may end up altering your brain to rely on vision for future movement assessment rather than on knee movement itself. This is on account of the brain’s neuroplasticity that enables it to rewire itself to meet any new challenge. This has led to research in virtual therapy to aid knee healing and to prevent repeat injury later. In other words, helping the brain to re-rewire itself back to its basic tools.

In the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic — with sizeable number of people suffering mental health issues — scientists could explore the potential of virtual reality that can help the brain get re-wired to focusing more on hope and positive projections. With most of us in home isolation due to frequent lockdowns, it may not be possible to physically visit a therapist and seek counsel, face-to-face. Such an initiative was rare even in ‘normal’ circumstances, given the social stigma attached to seeking mental therapy. Whereas seeking counsel from a spiritual master is considered kosher. In fact, the spiritual and the temporal could co-exist in the virtual world, widening our choice and ensuring a degree of privacy and accessibility.