The metaverse and the improvement in health

The metaverse creates an immersive experience in a virtual world, characterized by immediacy, ubiquity and multisensory characterized by the combination with virtual reality, augmented and artificial intelligence. Through an avatar, that is, a “fictitious self” is interacted in a space of virtuality.
Universities already present projects of metaversal experiences to enrich the learning of their students and academic offers have multiplied predicting future scenarios in the face of the uncertainties and opportunities of this revolutionary technology. Some of them were addressed at the International Congress #ORP2022 -co-organized by the Autonomous University of Chile- held in Colombia, which had as one of its focuses of debate the new configurations in the multiverses and / or metaverses.
A relevant aspect of the metaverse is the possible uses in health systems, to what extent could this reality benefit them? The question is of course ambitious, but certainly very relevant, due to the use of adjuvant technologies in health care during the pandemic. For example, telemedicine made it possible to alleviate the demands of health institutions.
The projection of the use of metaverses for therapeutic purposes already has antecedents in the use of BCIs (brain-computer interface), which uses Artificial Intelligence, also in the use of Deep Brain Stimulation in patients with Parkinson’s. When these are used according to a therapeutic benefit, it seems that the greatest difficulties lie in the equity in access to these neurotechnologies, which also requires a necessary modernization of the health system towards a digitalization that achieves interoperability and interconnection, with respect for the dignity of people. All this means that these technologies do not violate privacy, whose challenge lies in the enormous flow of data, as well as mental integrity, protected by the constitutional reform of neurorights. Autonomy and authenticity, given that the technologies applied do not modify the personality of people. Personal identity (concept that alludes to the persistence of what gives continuity to a person, and agency (in the sense that patients can through neurotechnologies restore motor functions facilitating action).
It is not difficult to imagine how immersion in metaverses could be a therapy for phobias, or to investigate pathological behaviors.
The eventual applications of metaverse in interpersonal therapies is an attractive reality that will likely encounter resistance from traditional therapists.
Along with this, the design of virtual universes must consider cultural variables, which do not endanger neurodiversity, so in terms of health, the discussions of medical anthropology have a wide fertile field of discussion and interpellation, without ignoring the regulatory challenges of metaversic technologies.

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Original source in Spanish