VR Flight Training Rewires 25 Brains to Treat Wings More Like Arms

3 articles · Updated · ZME Science · May 25

After four VR sessions over seven days, 25 volunteers showed stronger brain responses to wing images, with right-brain activity patterns shifting closer to those for upper limbs.
Ring-navigation scores climbed to 75.2% from 44.8%, as participants learned to control feathered virtual wings through arm and wrist movements that generated lift and drag.
Brain scans also found stronger links between the occipitotemporal cortex and frontoparietal movement regions when participants viewed wings, including unfamiliar bird wings they had never controlled.
The researchers said the wings did not become full body parts in the brain, but the shift suggests VR can push the brain's body map toward accepting new effectors.
Published in Cell Reports, the study points to possible uses in helping people adapt to prosthetics, artificial senses and other body extensions.

If your brain can adopt virtual wings in just one week, could it learn to truly feel and sense with a digital body?

How could this 'brain-hacking' method soon allow amputees to intuitively control and feel advanced robotic limbs as their own?

As our brains merge with virtual avatars, what are the unforeseen psychological risks of this powerful neural plasticity?