Forum Discussion
What is the "Optimal" Virtual Reality Experience/Future
I've been dancing around this question a bit in my VR musings and at this point, I think just plain old getting a discussion on the matter would be of some value. To start, I posit the question: "How ...
Currently TMS seems to be the most effective way to get immediate real results. For example, Google "Illusory Sensation of Movement Induced by Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation" by Christensen et al. 2010.
Today, I think TMS is still too crude to be used in VR. I think it would require additional time to develop a more sophisticated version, not resembling the current commercial devices. You will likely also need a monitoring/imaging system working alongside TMS (eg. fNIR, possibly ultrasound, etc.).
Alternatives include thermoacoustic tomography (infrared or microwave), although I am not aware of this being used transcranially for stimulation, only imaging. Also this significantly heats the tissue...not good.
There is one recent study using transcranial ultrasound (Legon et al. 2014), but none of the volunteers actually felt any effects of the stimulation.
Today, I think TMS is still too crude to be used in VR. I think it would require additional time to develop a more sophisticated version, not resembling the current commercial devices. You will likely also need a monitoring/imaging system working alongside TMS (eg. fNIR, possibly ultrasound, etc.).
Alternatives include thermoacoustic tomography (infrared or microwave), although I am not aware of this being used transcranially for stimulation, only imaging. Also this significantly heats the tissue...not good.
There is one recent study using transcranial ultrasound (Legon et al. 2014), but none of the volunteers actually felt any effects of the stimulation.