Virtual Reality

Can Virtual Reality (VR) help people recovering from addiction?

With the collaboration of Diane Gromala (Director of SFU’s Pain Studies lab and Canada Research Chair in Computational Technologies for Transforming Pain) and Sylvain Moreno (Director of SFU’s Digital Health Hub), we hope to design a VR-based program that can assess participants' progress in overcoming addiction.

Our team is investigating whether bio- and neuro- sensors connected to a VR system could transform the system into an assessment tool for determining triggers and the potential for relapse.
Our project is being implemented at John Volken Academy in Surrey (https://www.volken.org). The academy offers a two-year residential program for young people aged 18-35. A key issue is that they later can find themselves facing environments that may trigger addictive behavior or relapse.