Virtual reality (VR) treatment for phantom limb pain

Abstract

The brain monitors motor outputs and sensory inputs about limb movements and information communication of limb movements between the motor system and the sensory system all along the line. This information communication of limb movements is called as the sensorimotor loop. In the normal condition, the sensorimotor loop maintains congruent. Recent advancement of cognitive neuroscience can propose that pathologic pain like as phantom limb pain can emerge and sustains and finally impairs patients' quality of life when the loop becomes incongruent. We have treated phantom limb pain with the mirror visual feedback (MVF) and recently virtual reality (VR) treatment. The MVF and VR treatments can reconstruct movement representations of a phantom limb and then improve phantom limb pain. We have successfully evaluated such movement representations of a phantom limb by assessing the intact upper limb movements on the basis of the bimanual coupling effect, which is physiologically equipped with the brain. The analgesic effect of the VR system is closely linked to the objectively-assessed reemergence of movement representations of a phantom limb.