Diagnosing psychiatric and neurological conditions is tricky. Physicians have long reported that diagnoses are fraught with complications and subtleties. Anywhere from 35 percent to 85 percent of mental health conditions go undetected and undiagnosed, according to the World Health Organization, depending on where you live on the planet. Needless to say, to treat depression, Alzheimer's, or autism, it must first be detected.

Now clinicians and researchers are trying a new tool: virtual reality. VR has been touted as a promising means of treating some conditions, but it also may help diagnose them. As a diagnostic tool, VR potentially offers some big advantages: It can create convincingly realistic simulations of experiences that may provoke symptoms, and it can do so consistently, potentially making diagnoses more objective—or at least less subjective.

A scene from the virtual environment devised by Dennis Chan and his colleagues as part of their study into VR and Alzheimer's. Dennis Chan

In September, the UK-based Alzheimer's Society said it would fund a three-year research project using VR to try to detect early signs of Alzheimer's disease. In an initial study, researchers led by Cambridge University's Dr. Dennis Chan tested participants’ spatial navigation and memory by having them don a HTC Vive headset, follow an L-shaped path in a virtual environment (initially mapped out by cones), and then trace their footsteps back to their starting point without the help of any markers.

In a paper describing preliminary results, Chan’s team reported that the VR-based navigation test was more accurate in diagnosing mild Alzheimer’s-related impairment than traditional “gold-standard” cognitive tests, such as figure recall and symbol tests. In an email, Chan says VR could take on a bigger role in diagnosing mental disorders as VR gear becomes cheaper and easier to use.

Treating PTSD

Researchers at Emory University in Atlanta have used VR to diagnose and treat veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder related to sexual trauma while in the military. Participants were shown two-minute clips of a simulated foreign military base and a typical American city, while researchers monitored their heart rate and “startle” responses. In a paper published last year, the researchers reported significant reductions “in clinician-assessed and self-reported PTSD symptoms.”

VR is a promising diagnostic tool, researchers say, because it generates scenarios and experiences that can't easily be produced in a traditional clinical setting. “VR provides a unique opportunity to bring real-life experiences into the clinician’s office,” explains Dr. Martine van Bennekom, a researcher at the University of Amsterdam’s Department of Psychiatry. “With some psychiatric disorders, for example OCD or panic disorder, patients usually experience their symptoms in their personal environment or in crowded places, and not in the clinician’s room. With VR it is possible to immerse patients in an exterior environment while the clinician can observe symptoms and interview the patients about these symptoms and underlying thoughts.”