Using virtual reality to misrepresent how far the neck is turned can change the amount of pain a person with chronic neck pain feels, a South Australian study shows.

The study involved 24 people with chronic neck pain for an average of 11 years who sat in a chair while wearing a virtual reality head. Participants were shown a variety of indoor and outdoor scenes and asked to rotate their head to the left or right, until they felt pain.

The study participants were unaware that the researchers were manipulating the visual feedback provided in the virtual world so that it sometimes underrepresented or overrepresented the degree of neck rotation. 

When the display understated actual head rotation, participants were able to turn their head about six per cent further than they normally would.

But when the display overstated head rotation, their pain-free range of motion shrank by an average of seven per cent.

“Our findings show that the brain does not need danger messages coming from the tissues of the body in order to generate pain in that body part – sensible and reliable cues that predict impending pain are enough to produce the experience of pain,” said lead author and Professor of Clinical Neurosciences and Chair in Physiotherapy Lorimer Moseley.  

“These results suggest a new approach to developing treatments for pain that are based on separating the non-danger messages from the danger messages associated with a movement.”