Virtual Reality Body Exposure Therapy for Anorexia Nervosa. A Case Report With Follow-Up Results

Eating disorders - anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder - affect numerous Europeans. This narrative review summarizes European studies on their prevalence, incidence, comorbidity, course, consequences, and risk factors published in 2015 and the first half of 2016.

Illusions that induce a feeling of ownership over an artificial body or body-part have been used to explore the complex relationships that exist between the brain's representation of the body and the integrity of the body itself. Here we discuss recent findings in both healthy volunteers and clinical populations that highlight the robust relationship that exists between a person's sense of ownership over a body part, cortical processing of tactile input from that body part, and its physiological regulation. We propose that a network of multisensory and homeostatic brain areas may be responsible for maintaining a 'body-matrix'. That is, a dynamic neural representation that not only extends beyond the body surface to integrate both somatotopic and peripersonal sensory data, but also integrates body-centred spatial sensory data. The existence of such a 'body-matrix' allows our brain to adapt to even profound anatomical and configurational changes to our body. It also plays an important role in maintaining homeostatic control over the body. Its alteration can be seen to have both deleterious and beneficial effects in various clinical populations. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract Is virtual reality (VR) already a reality in behavioral health? To answer this question, a meta-review was conducted to assess the meta-analyses and systematic and narrative reviews published in this field in the last twenty-two months. Twenty-five different articles demonstrated the clinical potential of this technology in both the diagnosis and the treatment of mental health disorders: VR compares favorably to existing treatments in anxiety disorders, eating and weight disorders, and pain management, with long-term effects that generalize to the real world. But why is VR so effective? Here, the following answer is suggested: VR shares with the brain the same basic mechanism: embodied simulations. According to neuroscience, to regulate and control the body in the world effectively, the brain creates an embodied simulation of the body in the world used to represent and predict actions, concepts, and emotions. VR works in a similar way: the VR experience tries to predict the sensory consequences of an individual's movements, providing to him/her the same scene he/she will see in the real world. To achieve this, the VR system, like the brain, maintains a model (simulation) of the body and the space around it. If the presence in the body is the outcome of different embodied simulations, concepts are embodied simulations, and VR is an embodied technology, this suggests a new clinical approach discussed in this article: the possibility of altering the experience of the body and facilitating cognitive modeling/change by designing targeted virtual environments able to simulate both the external and the internal world/body.