How virtual reality bars and crack houses could help addicts learn how to stay free of drink or drugs

By Peter Rugg

PUBLISHED: 14:36 EST, 20 April 2013 | UPDATED: 09:30 EST, 21 April 2013

A new collection of virtual reality worlds designed to recreate the environment of an addict could help people develop coping strategies to stay clean.

Virtual reality trials done with addicts in North Carolina have tested the reaction of subjects hooked up to the system and sent to an approximation of their environment of choice, be it a neighborhood bar or a crack house.

Paraphernalia like pipes and needles can be added based on the addict's unique personal history.

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Addicts treated in a virtual world can develop coping mechanisms far better than they could if they were only treated in a lab

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Though mostly used to treat alcoholics and smokers, the virtual worlds and now being programmed for cocaine and heroin users

Zach Rosenthal, an assistant professor at Duke, created the simulations with funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Department of Defense and has tested the programs on about 90 people.

The methodology used in this is called cue reactivity.

 

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In this case, the cue is the trigger that sets a person off, such as a spider for people who suffer from arachnophobia or a bottle of beer for an alcoholic. The reactivity is just the reaction the cue induces - fear in the case of the spider or a bender in the case of the alcoholic.

So far, cue reactivity has been mostly used to treat phobias, slowly acclimating the patient to their trigger until they can cope with it.

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Similar therapies are already used to treat phobias

But learning to acclimate is part of addiction treatment too, as addicts try to develop tools that can help them get through real world cues without succumbing to their old habits.

A similar process is already weaved into some addiction treatments. Addicts will be presented with an empty bottle or a cigarette lighter which can trigger their craving so they can understand coping strategies.

Still, these exercises could be done only in a lab. What virtual reality offers is the closest possible version of the real thing while still remaining controlled.

'If I wanted to teach you to ride a bike, I could show you a video of a bike,' said University of Houston professor Patrick Bordnick. 'But wouldn't it be better if I could actually get you on a real bike?'

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Virtual environments can be tailored to the exact specifications of an addict's memory

 VIDEO  Environments can be customised to each addicts experience

The environments are able to be customized to each addict's memory, with the Budweiser they'd ask for in the real world appearing exactly the same in virtual reality.

Most of the experiments have dealt with smokers and alcoholics but the environments are being expanded to accommodate users who favor harder drugs.

A feasibility study treating 46 adult smokers for ten weeks gave one group virtual reality treatment and nicotine replacement therapy while the other got along without the simulated worlds.

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The technology is too new to be used by itself and is generally administered with more traditional treatments

The study found the group getting virtual sessions had a 'significantly lower' instance of smoking rates and cravings.

'The thing we don't really take into account [with traditional cue reactivity studies] is that the environment itself can serve as a cue,' Amy Traylor, an assistant professor at the University of Alabama told Popsci.

The treatment is still far too new to have any definitive conclusions drawn, and researchers are viewing it as a compliment to more traditional forms of addiction treatment.

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I can guarantee my sim would be the first to die from smoking weed ain't had in sooo lloooonnngggg I'd kill that poor computer avatar

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I like drugs and have taken many in my life and had great times but Heroin and crack are two substances that should be eradicated.

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"Virtual environments can be tailored to the exact specifications of an addict's memory"-------------------------Why wouldnt they be able to? its just some low budget 3d modelling.

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The Sims gone bad lol.

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Pathetic people. Just pull yourselves together and go out and get a job. Governments should nott pander to their egos like this. And to anyone who says that's easy for you to say - I have a severely debilitating illness, that gives me constant pain, and hardly able to walk, but I still fight against it to carry on working. The doctors told me to stop work 9 years ago, but I am still carrying on as long as I can manage. If I can use my will to fight against such adversity, why shouldn't they be expected to??

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Will they be getting virtually real drugs to take?

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If its drugs they want then give them as much as they want the world is over populated! Concentrate on youngsters that want to live and achieve their full potential for get about losers!

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if sciance can produce a safe vacine we could give our children aganst the effect of these drugs one day, the drugs had no effect the demand would son go.

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i hope these are screenshots from the new GTA

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Yeah, right.......time will tell, but I doubt longterm this is of any effectiveness.

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