SIAT Pain Studies Lab researchers collaborate with Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital

Research

SIAT Pain Studies Lab researchers collaborate with Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital

April 25, 2025

Screen grab from the Pain Studies Lab's Virtual Meditative Walk project.

The School of Interactive Arts & Technology鈥檚 Dr. Diane Gromala and Dr. Chris Shaw are collaborating with Harvard Medical School鈥檚 Dr. Deirdre Logan on a project to add an immersive virtual reality (VR) component to a new program at Boston Children鈥檚 Hospital.

The VR component that the researchers are adding to the Boston Children鈥檚 Hospital鈥檚 new program will treat young adults who live with chronic pain.

Researchers in the Pain Studies Lab, including neuroscientist Dr. Zahra Ofoghi, biomedical engineers Armin Froozanfar and Sara Khalilipicha, and computer scientist Efe Erhan, have updated one of the lab鈥檚 immersive VR systems for this purpose. Initially built and continually tested since 2011, the team upgraded their project according to their on-going co-design work with patient-partners and findings from their clinical, technical, and design research.¹

Wearing VR gear and biosensors, patients learn well-researched skills to manage how their chronic pain and health issues that are commonly affected by it. The immersive VR uniquely enables sensorially rich, real-time feedback.

Taking a patient-centred systems approach, the Virtual Meditative Walk integrates VR with biosensors, data visualization, and artificial intelligence (AI), all of which work together to help patients learn to better understand and manage their persistent pain via Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). As it evolved, the VMW was continually tested among diverse people, in clinical and home contexts, in short and longitudinal research studies, and across disciplines ranging from health to computer science and design.¹

Logan and Gromala met at a Consensus Meeting at Sick Kids in Toronto and, with approximately 30 pediatric pain experts, they co-developed guidelines for researchers and clinicians as they adopt VR for clinical use. At the recent vMED conference at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, for example, presenters demonstrated that the number of research papers about VR has grown in the past 10 years to over 30,000 papers worldwide.²

Using VR to help manage chronic pain have resulted in very promising results. The use of VR to treat PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) by the United States Veterans Affairs (VA) has been so successful that its widespread adoption in the United States was recently announced (Bailey et al.).³

Because MBSR is a skill that takes regular practice to learn, the researchers are exploring the feasibility of using VR in the program at Boston Children鈥檚 Hospital. They are also exploring any specialized needs that Young Adults may require if they use VR or MBSR on a regular basis. The pilot study phase is already underway.

^{1 To access the 20+ peer-reviewed, evidence-based research papers published about the VMW, please refer to}

^{2 鈥淏est Practices for Patient-Centered Engagement in Medical Extended Reality,鈥� a talk at the vMED 2025 conference at Cedars Sinai by ; ; ; and . [Accessed 2 April 2025].}

^{3 Bailey AL, Kirsh S, Rawlins C, Persky S, Clancy C. Early Scaling of Immersive Technology within the Veterans Health Administration. NEJM Catal Innov Care Deliv. 2024 Apr;5(4):10.1056/CAT.23.0356. DOI: 10.1056/CAT.23.0356. Epub 2024 Mar 20. PMID: 39474356; PMCID: PMC1152}1419.

Facebook

Twitter

SMS

Copy

天美mv天美

School of Interactive Arts & Technology

SIAT Pain Studies Lab researchers collaborate with Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital

Contact us