SynthesisTranslational psychiatry2021
Virtual reality: a powerful technology to provide novel insight into treatment mechanisms of addiction.
Synthesis in Translational psychiatry, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 57 citations in OpenAlex.
- Virtual Reality in Prevention and Treatment of Substance-Related Disorders: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials.Clinical psychology & psychotherapyPooled it
- Alcohol does not influence trust in others or oxytocin, but increases positive affect and risk-taking: a randomized, controlled, within-subject trial.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2024Trial
- Predictors of subjective and physiological craving during VR-cue exposure in alcohol use disorder: an explorative single-arm clinical study.BMC psychiatry · 2026Article
- Expert panel to identify applications of virtual reality (VR) in cognitive behavioral therapy for alcohol use disorder: A Delphi study.Research square · 2026Article
- Assessing usability and acceptability of a VR digital therapeutic for treatment of substance use disorders.Journal of social work practice in the addictions · 2026Article
- Psychophysiological Responses in Virtual Reality for Assessing Current Nicotine Use and Future Addiction Risk Among Young Adults: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Study.JMIR research protocols · 2026Article
- Virtualizing Alcohol Use Disorder Therapy: A Systematic Scoping Review.Advances in therapy · 2026Article
- Virtual Reality Technology in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Across Multiple Psychiatric Conditions: A Narrative Literature Review.Psychology research and behavior management · 2026Review
- [How extended reality applications make a difference in psychotherapy].Der Nervenarzt · 2025Review
- Virtual Reality: Challenges and Perspectives in Mental Health.Alpha psychiatry · 2025Review
- Virtual reality interventions in the assessment and treatment of alcohol use disorder - a systematic scoping review on methodology.Addiction science & clinical practice · 2025Article
- Reactivity to Smoking Cues in a Social Context: Virtual Reality Experiment.JMIR formative research · 2025Article
- Approaches for cessation and elimination of tobacco to atttain sustainable development goal.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2025Review
- Virtual reality motor sensing exercise in patients with Parkinson's disease: a scoping review.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciences · 2025Review
- Virtual reality: an emerging tool for mental health.Trends in psychiatry and psychotherapy · 2025Article
- Virtual Reality in the Treatment of Panic Disorder in the Last Decade: A Systematic Review.Clinical practice and epidemiology in mental health : CP & EMH · 2025Review
- Article
- The IntegraPark Study: An Opportunity to Facilitate High-Intensity Exercise with Immersive Virtual Reality in Parkinson's Disease Patients.Journal of functional morphology and kinesiology · 2024Article
- Exploring the Acute Effects of Immersive Virtual Reality Biking on Self-Efficacy and Attention of Individuals in the Treatment of Substance Use Disorders: A Feasibility Study.Brain sciences · 2024Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Due to its high ecological validity, virtual reality (VR) technology has emerged as a powerful tool for mental health research. Despite the wide use of VR simulations in research on mental illnesses, the study of addictive processes through the use of VR environments is still at its dawn. In a systematic literature search, we identified 38 reports of research projects using highly immersive head-mounted displays, goggles, or CAVE technologies to provide insight into treatment mechanisms of addictive behaviors. So far, VR research has mainly addressed the roles of craving, psychophysiology, affective states, cognition, and brain activity in addiction. The computer-generated VR environments offer very realistic, dynamic, interactive, and complex real-life simulations requesting active participation. They create a high sense of immersion in users by combining stereoscopic three-dimensional visual, auditory, olfactory, and tactile perceptions, tracking systems responding to user movements, and social interactions. VR is an emerging tool to study how proximal multi-sensorial cues, contextual environmental cues, as well as their interaction (complex cues) modulate addictive behaviors. VR allows for experimental designs under highly standardized, strictly controlled, predictable, and repeatable conditions. Moreover, VR simulations can be personalized. They are currently refined for psychotherapeutic interventions. Embodiment, eye-tracking, and neurobiological factors represent novel future directions. The progress of VR applications has bred auspicious ways to advance the understanding of treatment mechanisms underlying addictions, which researchers have only recently begun to exploit. VR methods promise to yield significant achievements to the addiction field. These are necessary to develop more efficacious and efficient preventive and therapeutic strategies.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.