Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 18, 2026
Simultaneous Application of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation during Virtual Reality Exposure
Published on: January 18, 2021
Physiological reactivity to nonideographic virtual reality stimuli in veterans with and without PTSD
Andrea K Webb1, Ashley L Vincent1, Alvin B Jin1
1The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Background:
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) currently is diagnosed via clinical interview in which subjective self reports of traumatic events and associated experiences are discussed with a mental health professional. The reliability and validity of diagnoses can be improved with the use of objective physiological measures.
Methods:
In this study, physiological activity was recorded from 58 male veterans (PTSD Diagnosis n = 16; Trauma Exposed/No PTSD Diagnosis: n = 23; No Trauma/No PTSD Diagnosis: n = 19) with and without PTSD and combat trauma exposure in response to emotionally evocative non-idiographic virtual reality stimuli.
Results:
Statistically significant differences among the Control, Trauma, and PTSD groups were present during the viewing of two virtual reality videos. Skin conductance and interbeat interval features were extracted for each of ten video events (five events of increasing severity per video). These features were submitted to three stepwise discriminant function analyses to assess classification accuracy for Control versus Trauma, Control versus PTSD, and Trauma versus PTSD pairings of participant groups. Leave-one-out cross-validation classification accuracy was between 71 and 94%.
Conclusions:
These results are promising and suggest the utility of objective physiological measures in assisting with PTSD diagnosis.
