Exposure to stressful situations in a virtual city environment (TL03000223)

Basic informations

Investigator: Mgr. et Mgr. Iveta Fajnerová, Ph.D.
Main recipient: National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Co-recipient: Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU) (Ing. Jan Husák)
Research period: 1/4/2020 – 31/12/2023
Total budget: 14,069,388 CZK
NIMH budget: 5,627,188 CZK
Supported by: Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TAČR)

Annotation

The aim of the project is to create a therapeutic software VRETcity situated in a complex virtual city environment for the purpose of exposure therapy, focused mainly on social phobias, agoraphobia and specific phobias related to situations typical for the city environment (transportation system including metro and airplanes, elevators and other limited space environments, skyscrapers and hospitals). The resulting therapeutic software will be enriched with the biofeedback. This biological feedback in the form of cardiac and breath recording effectively helps in the exposure therapy process by automatically responding to the current state of the person's anxiety and increasing the severity of the displayed stress situation only after resting state is achieved in the current conditions.