VR wings – Misryoum reports how VR training with virtual wings changed visual cortex responses, making wings feel more like body parts.
A new study from Misryoum suggests the brain can start treating virtual “wings” like real body parts, and doing so may even help people learn to fly in a digital sky.
The research centers on a surprisingly bodily question: what happens in the brain when people train their movement while seeing themselves as winged creatures?. Using a VR setup that displayed large. feathered wings aligned with a person’s arm and wrist motion. participants practiced tasks designed around the mechanics of bird flight.. After the weeklong training period. Misryoum reports that brain activity linked to how the visual system processes body parts began to change.
In this context. the work targets a key idea in neuroscience: brain plasticity. or the ability to reorganize in response to learning and experience.. Rather than learning only through facts or observation. participants learned through continuous sensorimotor feedback. with their actions directly driving what they saw in the virtual mirror.
Misryoum says the training tasks progressed from flapping to more demanding challenges, including staying airborne and steering through ring-like targets.. Importantly, improvement varied across individuals, with some learning quickly while others needed several training sessions.. But the overall pattern pointed toward skill acquisition, not just passive viewing.
After training. Misryoum reports that regions of the visual cortex that normally respond to images of body parts began showing stronger responses to different wings.. The researchers also found that the way the brain responded to virtual wings started to resemble its response to upper limbs. suggesting the brain was not only noticing the wings but integrating them into a body-related map.
This matters because it hints that the mind’s sense of “what counts as my body” can be expanded through technology, potentially reshaping how researchers design VR experiences for learning, rehabilitation, and assistive tools.
Beyond the brain-scanning results, Misryoum notes that participants reportedly gained a more grounded understanding of flight through direct experience.. That’s a reminder that VR may be more than a visual substitute; it can become a training ground where perception. action. and interpretation rapidly influence each other.
Misryoum concludes that as VR becomes more immersive. future experiments may explore what happens when people repeatedly inhabit new forms of movement and sensation.. If the brain can incorporate wings. it may offer clues about how it might accommodate other artificial extensions of the body or new ways of perceiving the world.