Using virtual reality to investigate psychological processes and mechanisms associated with the onset and maintenance of psychosis: a systematic review

PURPOSE: In the last decade researchers have embraced virtual reality to explore the psychological processes and mechanisms that are involved in the onset and maintenance of psychosis. A systematic review was conducted to synthesise the evidence of using virtual reality to investigate these mechanisms. METHODS: Web of Science, PsycINFO, Embase, and Medline were searched. Reference lists of collected papers were also visually inspected to locate any relevant cited journal articles. In total 6001 articles were potentially eligible for inclusion; of these, 16 studies were included in the review. RESULTS: The review identified studies investigating the effect of interpersonal sensitivity, childhood bullying victimisation, physical assault, perceived ethnic discrimination, social defeat, population density and ethnic density on the real-time appraisal of VR social situations. Further studies demonstrated the potential of VR to investigate paranoid ideation, anomalous experiences, self-confidence, self-comparison, physiological activation and behavioural response. CONCLUSIONS: The reviewed studies suggest that VR can be used to investigate psychological processes and mechanisms associated with psychosis. Implications for further experimental research, as well as for assessment and clinical practise are discussed. The present review has been registered in the PROSPERO register: CRD42016038085

The lateral line can mediate rheotaxis in fish

Rheotaxis is a behavioural orientation to water currents. It has been demonstrated physiologically that some lateral-line receptors are particularly well suited to provide information on water currents, but their contribution to rheotaxis has been largely overlooked. The accepted view is that rheotaxis is mediated by visual and tactile cues, and that in rheotactic orientation "the lateral lines play only a minor role". Here we provide a direct demonstration that rheotaxis can be mediated by the lateral line, and indeed by one specific receptor class of this system. In three diverse fish species, pharmacological block of the entire lateral-line system substantially increases the velocity threshold for rheotactic behaviour. The same effect is observed when only superficial neuromasts are ablated, whereas blockade of the other receptor class, canal neuromasts, has no such effect. Our results therefore demonstrate that superficial neuromasts make an important contribution to rheotactic behaviour in fish