{"id":185033,"date":"2025-07-03T10:52:19","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T08:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unipi.it\/news\/curare-lansia-su-una-mongolfiera-virtuale\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T12:25:32","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T10:25:32","slug":"curare-lansia-su-una-mongolfiera-virtuale","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.unipi.it\/en\/news\/curare-lansia-su-una-mongolfiera-virtuale\/","title":{"rendered":"Treating Anxiety on a (Virtual) Hot-Air Balloon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>3 July 2025 <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We wear a virtual reality headset and find ourselves immersed in an idyllic setting of forests, mountains and meadows. We are aboard a hot-air balloon. There is no preset trajectory: the balloon lifts when we are calm, and lowers slowly as tension or anxiety sets in. How is this possible?<\/p>\n<p><strong>A team of bioengineers at the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Pisa, led by Alberto Greco and Enzo Pasquale Scilingo, has designed a technological platform in which the virtual reality scenario responds to signals from the body.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-182760 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.unipi.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/mongolfiera2-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"901\" height=\"564\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unipi.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/mongolfiera2-1.png 901w, https:\/\/www.unipi.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/mongolfiera2-1-300x188.png 300w, https:\/\/www.unipi.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/mongolfiera2-1-768x481.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 901px) 100vw, 901px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe person wearing the virtual reality headset,\u201d explains Alberto Greco, Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Pisa, \u201cis monitored through non-invasive sensors that collect data on heart rate and skin conductance, which we interpret as being correlated to different states of anxiety or relaxation. The virtual reality scenario we developed receives this data and adjusts the hot-air balloon\u2019s movement accordingly. Since the goal is to make the balloon rise, the user gradually learns how to regulate their breathing, heart rate and sweating \u2014 and, in doing so, to feel less stressed and more relaxed. The study, published in <a href=\"https:\/\/ieeexplore.ieee.org\/document\/10429764\">Transactions on Affective Computing<\/a>, shows that even just five minutes of use helps people begin to relax.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt the moment,\u201d Greco continues, \u201cwe are applying the same principles to Social Anxiety Disorder, which has seen a marked increase in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially among young people and adolescents. For the past two years, within the framework of the <strong>BRAVE<\/strong> (Biofeedback-based peRsonAlised Virtual-reality Exposure therapies for anxiety disorders) PRIN (Project of Relevant National Interest), we have been working on an <strong>innovative technological platform that applies physiological signal monitoring and virtual reality to what is known in psychology as exposure therapy \u2014 that is, gradually exposing individuals to a feared stimulus or anxiety-inducing situation<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-182753 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.unipi.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/sala-daspetto-2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1034\" height=\"574\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unipi.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/sala-daspetto-2.png 1034w, https:\/\/www.unipi.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/sala-daspetto-2-300x167.png 300w, https:\/\/www.unipi.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/sala-daspetto-2-1024x568.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.unipi.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/sala-daspetto-2-768x426.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1034px) 100vw, 1034px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis type of therapy is often rejected by patients, for understandable reasons,\u201d adds Sergio Frumento, psychophysiologist and research fellow at the Department of Information Engineering, \u201cbut the use of virtual reality that adapts to the person immersed in it improves both the acceptability and the effectiveness of the treatment. We estimated the degree of social anxiety in a group of patients using a model, and based on that we created two virtual reality scenarios: a waiting room that gradually fills with people who approach or try to interact with the user, and a scenario in which the user is asked to give a speech in a theatre before a large audience. The goal is to estimate in real time the user\u2019s perceived anxiety levels by monitoring cardiovascular dynamics and skin conductance, in order to dynamically adapt the level of anxiety-inducing stimulation and ensure a personalised and tolerable therapy. This high level of flexibility and adaptability makes the platform suitable for both clinical and non-clinical contexts, addressing a growing social issue through an approach that also lends itself to remote telemedicine applications \u2014 for example, for the treatment of individuals affected by social withdrawal. This condition also includes the so-called hikikomori.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis line of research,\u201d concludes Greco, \u201cis part of the activities of the Department\u2019s Centre 5.0, where we are committed to developing increasingly human-centred technologies \u2014 that is, technologies designed and created with people\u2019s needs at their core.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The BRAVE project, funded by the Ministry of University and Research, is coordinated by the Department of Information Engineering at the University of Pisa, and involves the Department of Surgical, Medical, Molecular and Critical Area Pathology of Pisa (specifically Danilo Menicucci), and the Department of Computer Science, Bioengineering, Robotics and Systems Engineering at the University of Genoa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Una piattaforma tecnologica innovativa dai ricercatori del Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell\u2019Informazione congiunge realt\u00e0 virtuale e analisi dei segnali corporei per supportare nel trattamento dell\u2019ansia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":182799,"menu_order":4,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"tag-notizie-persone":[],"tags_news":[2309,1226],"categorie":[],"class_list":["post-185033","news","type-news","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tags_news-health","tags_news-innovation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Treating Anxiety on a (Virtual) Hot-Air Balloon ~ UNIPI<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.unipi.it\/en\/news\/curare-lansia-su-una-mongolfiera-virtuale\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Treating Anxiety on a (Virtual) Hot-Air 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