ArticleEuropean journal of applied physiology2026
Nature immersion in virtual reality has limited hypoalgesia effects for muscle pain or motor performance benefits during prescribed and self-regulated tasks.
Article in European journal of applied physiology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Abstract
purposeVirtual reality (VR) reduces experimental and clinical pain, but whether these effects extend to naturally occurring muscle pain (NOMP) during exercise remains unclear. This study examined whether immersive nature-based VR attenuates NOMP and improves motor performance during prescribed and self-regulated exercise.
methodsTwo within-participant crossover studies were conducted involving 12 (Study 1) and 24 (Study 2) healthy participants. In Study 1, participants completed a stepped incremental cycling task to exhaustion. In Study 2, participants performed self-regulated intermittent isometric handgrip contractions at light (13/100) and strong (50/100) perceived effort. Tasks were completed under immersive VR (nature scene), two-dimensional sham, and no-intervention control conditions in pseudo-randomised, counterbalanced orders. Pain onset, NOMP intensity, perceived effort, and time to exhaustion were assessed in Study (1) Muscle pain intensity and force production were measured in Study (2) Repeated measures ANOVAs and assessed main condition effects.
resultsImmersive VR did not delay pain onset [Formula: see text], prolong time to exhaustion [Formula: see text], or lower perceived effort compared within sham or control conditions [Formula: see text]. A small, yet practically meaningful, reduction in NOMP intensity occurred early during cycling [Formula: see text] but was not sustained at later phases of the task [Formula: see text]. In Study 2, NOMP intensity [Formula: see text] and force production measures [Formula: see text] were similar across conditions.
conclusionNature-based immersive VR had limited effects on NOMP and motor performance. Pain types that are peripherally driven, like NOMP, may be less affected by VR interventions which target central mechanisms of pain modulation. Thus, hypoalgesia effects with VR are potentially pain-type dependent.
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