CHUV/Unige: Virtual reality can operate our immune system

Confronted on a screen with a threat of purely virtual infection, the brain of the healthy individual triggers a immune response similar to that of a truly infected person. This is demonstrated by a multidisciplinary research team of the CHUV and the University of Geneva (Unige).

This research, conducted by Dr. Sara Trabanelli (Unige) and Dr Michel Akselrod (CHUV-Unil), was published in “Nature Neuroscience”. It reveals a dialogue hitherto unknown between brain and immune system: a defensive response initiated not by a real pathogen, but by the sole brain anticipation of an infectious threat.

Thus, it is possible to stimulate the brain virtually so that it sends signals to the immune system and asks it to mobilize to defend itself in the face of a pathogen.

Different experiences were carried out by the CHUV and UNIGE on approximately 250 participants. They were in virtual reality with human avatars, some of which had visual signs of infection, others had a neutral or frightened face.

For 15 minutes, the subject observed on a screen a face of a person who approaches and presents the signs of a classic infection like chickenpox, for example. His reaction was monitored by several bias including electroencephalogram, MRI and blood analysis. Result: the approach of an avatar infected with virtual reality is enough to activate brain regions linked to threat detection and the regulation of immunity. Even more surprising: immune markers typical of an answer to a real infection were indeed present in the blood of the participants.

To compare this response to that of real immune activation, another group of participants received a vaccine. The immune responses observed in both cases – virtual exposure or vaccination – have shown amazing similarities. For example, it appears, by comparing a vaccinated influenza subject and a subject exposed to virtual reality, that several biomarkers of the measurable immune response in the blood are comparable in real and virtual infection.

This study therefore reveals an ability of the brain to anticipate an infectious danger and to engage the body in a defensive response, even before a real pathogen intervene. It opens the way to a renewed understanding of interactions between the central nervous system and the immune system.

These discoveries also open promising avenues to better understand the influence of the brain on immune defense, offering new perspectives for research on placebo effects, psychosomatic disorders or even modulation of the immune response. Ultimately, virtual reality could even become a therapeutic tool to strengthen or inhibit certain immune responses, support the efficiency of vaccines or help desensitize allergic people.

The team was led by Pr Andrea Serino, Director of the Myspace Lab (University Service of Neuroréhabilitation du CHUV and the Institution of Lavigny) and associate professor at the Faculty of Biology and Medicine (FBM) of UNIL and the Pre Camilla Jandus, Laboratory Chef in the Department of Pathology and Immunology and the Research Center on the Faculty of Medicine Unige and member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research.