ArticleCurrent psychiatry reports2024
Harnessing Immersive Virtual Reality: A Comprehensive Scoping Review of its Applications in Assessing, Understanding, and Treating Eating Disorders.
Article in Current psychiatry reports, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 13 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
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Exploring Loneliness in Clinical and Sub-Clinical Eating Disorders: A Systematic Review.European eating disorders review : the journal of the Eating Disorders Association · 2026Pooled it
- Maladaptive exercise: the hidden role of physical activity and sport professionals in the early detection of eating disorders.Journal of eating disorders · 2026Article
- AI-generated food stimuli match real counterparts in perceived healthiness and calorie content but not in realism or willingness to eat.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Bulimia nervosa.Nature reviews. Disease primers · 2026Review
- Distractor effect of food stimuli among patients with binge eating behaviour - a narrative review and pilot data.Reviews in endocrine & metabolic disorders · 2026Review
- Exploring Virtual Reality for Body Image Assessment and Psychological Interventions in Individuals With Obesity: a Comprehensive Review.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2026Review
- Effects of Exposure to Non-Immersive Virtual Reality on Disgust and Anxiety: A Study on Non-Clinical Samples.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- The role of appearance-related comments and interoceptive deficits in eating disorders: an exploratory study in a 1-year cohort of outpatients.Journal of eating disorders · 2025Article
- A systematic review on personalization of treatment components in IBIs for mental disorders.Internet interventions · 2025Review
- Virtual Meets Reality: A Psychodynamic Perspective on Immersive Technologies.Clinical neuropsychiatry · 2025Article
- Predicting anorexia nervosa treatment efficacy: an explainable machine learning approach.Journal of eating disorders · 2025Article
- The adamant adherence to a prior belief: the case of anosognosia in anorexia nervosa.Frontiers in neurology · 2025Article
- A Narrative Review on the Neurocognitive Profiles in Eating Disorders and Higher Weight Individuals: Insights for Targeted Interventions.Nutrients · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
13 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundImmersive Virtual Reality (IVR) has shown promise in the assessment, understanding, and treatment of eating disorders (EDs), providing a dynamic platform for clinical innovation. This scoping review aims to synthesize the recent advancements and applications of IVR in addressing these complex psychological disorders.
methodsThis review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis Protocols, focusing on studies published in the past five years. It included peer-reviewed papers that used IVR for ED assessment, examination, or treatment. A comprehensive database search provided a selection of relevant articles, which were then methodically screened and analyzed.
resultsTwenty studies met the inclusion criteria, with a primary focus on Anorexia Nervosa (AN), Bulimia Nervosa (BN), and Binge Eating Disorder (BED). The application of IVR was categorized into three areas: assessment, understanding, and treatment. IVR was found to be an effective tool in assessing body image distortions and emotional responses to food, providing insights that are less accessible through traditional methods. Furthermore, IVR offers innovative treatment approaches by facilitating exposure therapy, modifying body-related biases, and enabling emotional regulation through embodied experiences. The studies demonstrate IVR's potential to improve body image accuracy, reduce food-related anxieties, and support behavioral changes in ED patients.
conclusionIVR stands out as a transformative technology in the field of EDs, offering comprehensive benefits across diagnostic, therapeutic, and experiential domains. The IVR's ability to simulate the brain's predictive coding mechanisms provides a powerful avenue for delivering embodied, experiential interventions that can help recalibrate distorted body representations and dysfunctional affective predictive models implicated in EDs. Future research should continue to refine these applications, ensuring consistent methodologies and wider clinical trials to fully harness IVR's potential in clinical settings.
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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.