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. 2023 Jul 3;13(1):10719.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-36861-3.

Virtual embodiment in fibromyalgia

Justyna Świdrak  1   2 , Ana Arias  3 , Edgar Rodriguez de la Calle  4 , Antonio Collado Cruz  3 , Maria V Sanchez-Vives  4   5
Affiliations

Virtual embodiment in fibromyalgia

Justyna Świdrak et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Chronic pain alters the experience of owning a body and leads to disturbances in bodily perception. We tested whether women with fibromyalgia (FM) are receptive to bodily illusions of owning a visible and progressively invisible body in immersive virtual reality (VR), and what modulates this experience. Twenty patients participated in two experimental sessions; each session included two conditions in a counterbalanced order. We found that patients with FM could indeed experience virtual embodiment. Sentiment analysis revealed significantly more positive reactions to the progressively invisible body, yet twice as many patients declared they preferred the illusion of a visible virtual body. A linear mixed model revealed that the strength of embodiment was positively associated with body perception disturbances and negatively associated with FM symptoms intensity. No effect of pain during the VR experience nor interoception awareness on embodiment was found. The results indicated that patients with FM are receptive to virtual bodily illusions and that the impact of the embodiment depends on affective reactions, the level of cognitive body distortions, and the intensity of symptoms. Importantly, there is a large variation among patients which should be considered in future VR-based interventions.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Experimental procedure.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Virtual reality scene. (a–c) Looking down at one’s body. (d–f) Observing one’s body in the mirror. (a,d) control condition; (b,e) gradual increase in transparency, (c,f) the body becomes fully transparent.
Figure 3
Figure 3
(a) Distribution of body ownership values on a Likert scale (1–7) in the sample. (b) Distribution of agency over the virtual body on a Likert scale (1–7). (c) Surprising responses on a Likert scale (1–7). In (a–c) the first and second sessions are represented. The red line corresponds to the median. (d) Embodiment levels and the preference for bodily illusion.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Word cloud using frequency of words and expressions used to describe the experience in VR. A word which appears twice is 50% bigger (scale = 0.5).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Box plots representing (a) the distribution of sentiment scores by preferred body illusion and, (b) the body illusion participants referred to.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Random effect of body perception disturbance (a) and FM symptoms (b) on embodiment.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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