Virtual Reality to Study Immune Responses

A group of researchers put volunteers in virtual reality headsets and observed how their immune systems responded to an infectious threat that did not exist.

Volunteers walked through a VR environment where avatars sneezed and coughed at them. Note that this was not an actual infection; it was just a simulated sickness in a virtual world.

Researchers compared their immune response to 3 controls: 1) a neutral avatar, 2) a scary avatar, and 3) a non-VR flu vaccine.

The result: The immune response to the sick avatar was remarkably similar to that to the actual vaccine. The group had higher innate lymphoid cell (ILC) activity.

I wrote about this paper a year ago when it first came out. Last month, the authors published an addendum acknowledging earlier research showing similar effects.

When I read the addendum, I knew I had to talk about this again. Because this is what science is - a continuing process.

Link to my blog: https://www.jainuajit.com/portfolio/brain-activates-immune-system-sick-people-nearby/ Source: Trabanelli, S. et al. Neural anticipation of virtual infection triggers an immune response. Nat Neurosci 28, 1968–1977 (2025). doi:10.1038/s41593-025-02008-y