The Pain Studies Lab will be partnering with Dr. Faranak Farzan and the John Volken Academy to design a virtual reality program to help people with addiction recovery. This program will be developed to assess participants’ progress in overcoming addiction.
The John Volken Academy is an addiction treatment program for young people ages 18-35 and is located in Surrey, BC. After patients leave the two-year residential program, they are often confronted with environments that could trigger addictive behavior or relapse.
An immersive VR system could be used in two ways:
• First, bio- and neuro-sensors connected to the VR system could transform the VR system into an assessment tool that helps doctors determine if patients are prone to relapse, and could help identify triggers that may lead to relapse.
• Second, the VR system could function as part of a treatment (intervention) plan that arms patients with experiences that help prepare them to confront such triggers in an immersive and realistic simulation. In both cases, the VR will help researchers better understand aspects of the brain works in a participants’ vulnerable state.
Study Team:
- Dr. Faranak Farzan
- Dr. Diane Gromala
- Dr. Sylvain Moreno
- Dr. Gregory J. Christie
- Serkan Pekcetin
- Kathryn Cruz
- Sungmin Park
- Simon Fraser University, School of Mechatronics System Engineering
- Simon Fraser University, School of Interactive Arts & Technology
- John Volken Academy
