Pain-Oriented Virtual Reality System (alpha)

Assigned Human-Computer Interaction Bachelor Thesis Embodiment Lab

Background

Chronic pain is a major public health challenge. Epidemiological studies report that about one fifth of the total population is affected in both the US and Europe. Particularly challenging is the treatment of neuropathic pain, which affects about 7% to 8% of the European population. Signs of neuropathic pain are also found in the context of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). CRPS affects extremities and occurs mainly after trauma or surgery. Patients suffer from excessive pain and hypersensitivity, autonomic as well as motor and trophic changes. Interestingly, around 75% of CRPS patients report at least one neglect-like symptom. Similarly, 54-88% of CRPS patients report disturbances of body perception. Altered body perception (BP) and neglect-like symptoms are associated with more pain, anxiety as well as pain catastrophizing and ultimately unfavorable outcome.

Recent advances in avatar technology significantly increase the potential of VR-based therapies. Avatar technology allows to exploit virtual body ownership (VBO) effects which open-up novel approaches for the diagnosis and treatment of BP-related disorders and diseases. For example, frequent exposure to modified bodies and body part representations not only changes movement patterns and behavior during the VR-exposure, the Proteus effect makes these changes last through-out but also after the stimulus, i.e., after participants leave the VR back to the real world. Such avatar and body ownership interventions directly target BP. They carry the potential to normalize disturbed BPs in reality and to modify and correct pathological misconceptions for BP-related disorders and diseases.

Task

The goal of this topic is the development and evaluation of POVRS-alpha (POVRS: Pain-Oriented Virtual Reality Diagnose and Rehabilitation System), an XR-based gamified rehabilitation application. The application should mimic a classical Simon game (see figure above left and middle) and should be targeting pain rehabilitation.

The application will incorporate configurable and modifiable upper extremities (arms/hands, see figure above) and simple motor tasks (touch, reach, given hand postures) to customize VR experiences that address mobile BP training to improve sensory-motor function and ultimately pain perception.

The task is broken-down as follows:

1. Sum-up related work on VR-based therapy targeting pain symptoms.
2. Identify favorable approaches (techniques, target factors, etc.) from the related work.
3. Design an own approach, take Simon game as starting idea.
4. Implement and test own approach (POVRS-alpha).
5. Evaluate POVRS-alpha with healthy participants.
6. Evaluate POVRS-alpha with small sample of patients.

The described tasks can be carried out by students of any programs of Human-Computer Interaction, Games Engineering, Computer Science, or Human-Computer Systems. The extensions of the task and its main focus will be tailored for the respective program of study and final goal (project, BSc or MSc thesis), i.e., depending on the work load of the tasks 1.-4., the overall progress, and the scope (e.g., bachelor degree), tasks 5. and 6. will not be part of the overall assignment but will be assigned as individual independent task(s).

The task has the additional benefit to work on a real-world problem of high significance together with colleagues from the University Hospital Würzburg.

Prerequisites

• Interest in a very up-to-date topic
• Good development skills
• If applicable (see above) good design and evaluation skills

Favorable

Experience in one or several of

• Unity/Unreal Engine
• Principles of Real-time Interactive Systems
• Computer Graphics
• Other game engines

References

Colloca, L., Raghuraman, N., Wang, Y., Akintola, T., Brawn-Cinani, B., Colloca, G., Kier, C., Varshney, A., and Murthi, S. (2020). Virtual reality: physiological and behavioral mechanisms to increase individual pain tolerance limits, Pain, 161(9):2010–2021.

Thomas Waltemate, Dominik Gall, Daniel Roth, Mario Botsch, Marc Erich Latoschik (2018) The Impact of Avatar Personalization and Immersion on Virtual Body Ownership, Presence, and Emotional Response, In IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG), 24(4):1643-1652.

Daniel Roth, Marc Erich Latoschik (2020). Construction of the Virtual Embodiment Questionnaire (VEQ), In IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG), 26(12):3546-3556.

Contact Persons at the University Würzburg