Personalising virtual reality therapies for chronic pain using eye tracking data

A PhD researcher at the University of East Anglia is examining the potential of using eye tracking data to personalise virtual reality therapies for chronic pain.

Dr Jordan Tsigarides, of University of East Anglia’s School of Health Sciences, conducted a study involving 84 volunteers. Half of the volunteers had conditions causing chronic musculoskeletal pain – including arthritis and fibromyalgia.

The study participants completed a series of memory challenges while wearing a VR headset equipped with eye-tracking technology.

The researchers observed that as the tasks became more difficult, participants’ pupils widened and their blink rates increased.

By using artificial intelligence models to analyse eye tracking information, the researchers were able to distinguish between low and high levels of mental workload with up to 88% accuracy in volunteers without chronic pain.

Tsigarides highlighted that the findings, which are published in Scientific Reports, suggest virtual reality therapies could be adapted to individuals based on eye tracking data – helping to avoid a participant becoming mentally overloaded.

“Virtual reality has enormous therapeutic potential - whether that’s guiding patients through a peaceful woodland, supporting relaxation exercises or engaging them with games and puzzles that help manage pain,” he said.

The PhD researcher noted that most virtual reality programmes targeting chronic pain offer the same experience to everyone.

“Our work suggests future systems could read mental effort through the eyes and adapt therapy in real time to each individual,” Tsigarides explained.

“If a headset can detect when someone is becoming mentally overloaded, it could potentially adapt the experience automatically to keep them engaged and maximise therapeutic benefit,” he added.