Repeated Exposure to Illusory Sense of Body Ownership and Agency Over a Moving Virtual Body Improves Executive Functioning and Increases Prefrontal Cortex Activity in the Elderly.

ABSTRACT: We previously showed that the illusory sense of ownership and agency over a moving body in immersive virtual reality (displayed in a first-person perspective) can trigger subjective and physiological reactions on the real subject's body and, therefore, an acute improvement of cognitive functions after a single session of high-intensity intermittent exercise performed exclusively by one's own virtual body, similar to what happens when we actually do physical activity. As well as confirming previous results, here, we aimed at finding in the elderly an increased improvement after a longer virtual training with similar characteristics. Forty-two healthy older subjects (28 females, average age = 71.71 years) completed a parallel-group randomized controlled trial (RCT; UMIN000039843, umin.ac.jp)

SUBMITTER: Burin D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8200494 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature