ArticleScientific reports2023
Virtual embodiment in fibromyalgia.
Article in Scientific reports, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The bodily self in fibromyalgia: A systematic review and meta-analysis of body image, body representation, and interoceptive dysfunction.Psychiatry and clinical neurosciences · 2026Pooled it
- Self-reported questionnaires assessing body perception disturbances in adults with chronic non-cancer pain: a scoping review.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2025Pooled it
- XR body illusion for managing pain in fibromyalgia: examining optimal duration.Virtual reality · 2026Article
- Article
- Virtual reality in functional neurological disorder: a theoretical framework and research agenda for use in the real world.BMJ neurology open · 2024Review
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
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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