VR roller coaster experiment with migraine patients

Migraine is known to cause changes in nausea and perception depending on the situation, but the cause is unknown. There are also people who regularly suffer from migraines and others who never experience migraines at all. So, to elucidate what’s going on in the brain when there’s a migraine, an experiment was conducted examining the brain of a roller coaster ride in a virtual world.

Although it is known that 15% of the world’s population suffers from migraines, the causes of migraines are unknown. Many scientists are conducting various studies to determine the cause of migraine attacks and find a cure.

A team of researchers from the University of Hamburg in Germany recruited 20 migraine patients with a history of migraine attacks 4 or more per month and 20 who had no migraine at all. The research team had subjects experience a first-person perspective roller coaster image in a virtual reality world while observing subjects’ brain activity using fMRI, a functional magnetic resonance imaging method that can observe cerebral hemodynamics.

As a result, there were no migraine attacks, but 13 out of 20 migraine owners reported feeling motion sick. In addition, the nausea lasted for a long time and was said to be strong. Meanwhile, out of 20 people who did not have migraines, 6 felt motion sickness.

In addition, fMRI results confirmed that migraine owners had increased activity in five brain regions, including two occipital lobes, which are related to visual processing. The research team also said that the activity of nerve cells that control movement was prominent, and that this nerve cell activation is likely related to visual or auditory abnormalities in the brain.

The research team will switch to a study comparing changes in brain activity shown in this study with changes in brain activity related to migraines, and believe that new treatments may be discovered depending on the results. Future research will investigate whether the findings can be confirmed in more migraine sufferers. Related information can be found here.