Virtual reality may be helpful for neurological disorders: study

Who would have thought playing video games can actually be useful? According to a recent study, playing games in virtual reality (VR) may help treat people with neurological disorders like autism, schizophrenia and Parkinson’s disease. This study that was published in the journal Scientific Reports, says video games can help patients shift their perceptions of time, which conditions lead them to perceive differently.
"The ability to estimate the passage of time with precision is fundamental to our ability to interact with the world," said Seamas Weech, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

"For some individuals, however, the internal clock is maladjusted, causing timing deficiencies that affect perception and action," Weech said in a statement.

The study aims to help researchers understand how these deficiencies might be acquired and how to recalibrate time perception in the brain.
"This study adds valuable proof that the perception of time is flexible, and that VR offers a potentially valuable tool for recalibrating time in the brain," said Weech.

"It offers a compelling application for rehabilitation initiatives that focus on how time perception breaks down in certain populations," he said.

"For developing clinical applications, we need to know whether these effects are stable for minutes, days, or weeks afterward. A longitudinal study would provide the answer to the answer to this question," he said.