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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

> In fact, many people have reported that spending time in VR, and taking a break whenever motion sickness creeps up, actually reduces motion sickness outside of VR. As in, people are saying "After playing in my Rift for a few weeks, I can suddenly read in the car for the first time!"

Is this because the VR experience is causing your brain to recalibrate your vestibular system [1]?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestibular_system

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More than likely. Our brains are very adaptable, it would appear this is more similar to how people have been "recalibrated" to chronic pain and extreme phobias.

The chronic pain example is that a prolonged duration (about 2 weeks) of being free of pain medications can cause the body to adapt and recognize it's over-interpreting pain.

The extreme phobia was if you had someone with a severe phobia of snakes, you would put them into a room with a few dozen snakes in cages and lock them in until they recalibrate as their body can only stay in panic for so long. However... it isn't the most ethical way as it actually is possible to suffer heart failure from fear.

I've heard of the phobia method, as your body eventually exhausts its adrenaline stores and you're able to address the issue more rationally instead of under physiological duress.

I had not heard about the chronic pain example though; thank you!

> I've heard of the phobia method, as your body eventually exhausts its adrenaline stores and you're able to address the issue more rationally instead of under physiological duress.

If you're talking about Adrenal Fatigue, then that's pseudoscience not backed by the medical community[1] (though you will find plenty of "solutions" for it on the internet, for your money of course ;) ).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrenal_fatigue

Mirror boxes as a way to treat phantom limb issues are somewhat related to the idea of the body "recalibrating":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_box

> The chronic pain example is that a prolonged duration (about 2 weeks) of being free of pain medications can cause the body to adapt and recognize it's over-interpreting pain.

Yeah, but the pain never really goes away, though. But the time effect is definitely true.

I've had two low back surgeries, and I can attest that you simply "get used to it."

I think you can train it in general. Astronauts, for example, usually get over zero-g sickness after a while, and flying in small planes makes you less sensitive to turbulence.

And if so, could we use VR to help people with vestibular disorders?

It appears that it is entirely possible.

After I had a bad concussion, one of the biggest things that helped -- with a multitude of post concussion syndrome symptoms, not just vision/movement -- was vestibular therapy. It consisted of things like having the word "dog" on a sheet of paper on a wall and keeping my eyes focused on it while turning my head left and right to a metronome. Once I got better at that, we'd either increase the speed or add "distractions" like having "dog" written on black and white checkered boxes.

But more related to what you're saying, there are actually therapy systems that use multiple displays to simulate things like walking through a grocery store. Some people after a concussion can't even go through a grocery store because all the stimulus of different boxes plus movement overwhelms them. An even simpler thing I did was simply to watch youtube videos of people walking through areas with a shaky camera or a dashboard camera from a car driving at night (dealing with other cars' lights). So if those 2d versions are effective, perhaps VR can also help.

There's hardware for that: http://www.framiral.fr/eng/multitest.php

Designed for military training, this type of device is now available for civilian treatment.

Must be cheaper to use an Occulus though.

Hopefully not recalibrating it to "ignore" your vestibular system..

I suspect it's more like "decoupling" vision and vestibular system.

"Recalibrating" here may mean just learning to ignore it.

I really think this is better describe as habituation.

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