 Back in 2016, I made a little video called How Virtual Reality Affects the Brain and it seemed to grab the attention of many, but as a whole the video just talked about the general effects of VR and just barely brushed the idea of it being used as a form of treatment for those with medical problems. So in this second installment, we're going to take a look at some of the medical miracles achieved by VR. Assuming you've watched the first video, which isn't necessary but well appreciated, we already know by now that VR does indeed affect the brain by distorting the information processed and reducing the neuronal activity in the hippocampus, which is the region of the brain that plays a role in spatial and environmental awareness as well as memory formation. But now neuroscientists realize there is more to VR than we thought before, especially when it comes to medical applications. So where do we start? Well how about with this story? At the University of Washington Harborview Burn Center, 86% of patients reported having severe pain, even after being treated with opioids and other standard medications. So to find a way to cope with this problem, a case study was performed. In it we had a patient who had five staples removed from a skin graftful plain Nintendo and then later had six staples excised from the same graftful under virtual reality. Upon removing all the staples, the patients reported experiencing less pain while using VR. Similarly, another patient reported significantly less pain under VR, as opposed to playing some video games while he underwent a wound care process for a burn covering about 33% of his body. After performing MRI scans on volunteers who had their nerves stimulated to give them the illusion of experiencing pain from thermal damage while playing a VR game called Snow World, researchers at Harborview found a decrease in pain-related activity in the brain. This is because pain is as much a psychological phenomena as it is a physiological one in that it's up to one's mind to consciously focus on and process the pain signal. VR, however, provides a distraction for the patient and moves the center of their attention from the pain they're experiencing to the VR game they're playing by providing a fully immersive experience of sensory stimulation, thus allocating less areas of the brain to process the signal effectively, leaving the patient in a less painful state. VR's power doesn't just end there though, as it's also making strides as a form of neurological rehabilitation. In mid-2016, a study was conducted on adults living with MCI or mild cognitive impairment. Individuals with this condition often see a decline in cognitive abilities, which will show up in symptoms such as memory loss, trouble finding words, etc. MCI has many causes with some of the most prominent being traumatic brain injuries and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. There is currently no cure for MCI, although certain Alzheimer's medications can't help a little bit. However, VR seems to be a bit of a game changer. In 2016, a study was conducted on 24 adults with MCI, in which half of them were exposed to 30 minutes of VR over 20 sessions in four weeks, while the other half didn't receive any VR sessions at all. The results were astounding. Researchers found significant differences in memory, balance, and concentration among those who underwent the VR therapy compared to their no-treatment counterparts, indicating that VR's potential as a form of cognitive medicine is quite impressive. Although we know that VR seems to work, we don't completely understand why. Maybe its stimulation of real-world situations creates new connections between neurons in the brain, allowing the subject to think and act in similar real-life situations much more quickly and efficiently, but of course that's just one idea, and there could be other factors at play here which are currently beyond our understanding. Nonetheless, with virtual reality's power being realized and used more frequently, success stories like the Harborview Burn Center and MCI study patients are becoming much more common, which may lead to VR being one of the standard treatments in medicine one day. Of course though further research is required to fully understand the effects of VR on the physical and psychological aspects of our health, but nevertheless it does show a lot of promise. Thanks, Milan. Yeah, virtual reality is wonderful because our silly reptile brains don't know the difference between that and real reality, but you know what? You know. You know that VR isn't real, so what if we could have holograms instead? Then they'd live out here with you. In my video on Unidos of Trace, I looked into exactly what technology we have now and what holograms might look like in the future. Check it out.