Human InNervate VR
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Date
2020-04-30
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Abstract
Historically human anatomy has been taught using didactic lectures, graphic illustrations or descriptions in textbooks, and performing dissections of cadavers. While these methods can be considered tried and true, students may struggle to mentally convert a 2D drawing to 3D and accurately interpret the layout of anatomy. This in turn, can result in issues with students visualspatial ability to correctly learn and understand the relationships between muscles and nerves, especially their dynamic interactions with one another. This raises the question “how do we enhance a student’s learning experience for nerve innervation?” My research project, Human InNervate VR, seeks to find a solution to this question. Human InNervate VR is a Virtual Reality (VR) environment that allows the user to interact with a human arm in order to study the relationship between nerves and muscles in that area. Human InNervate VR has 2 modules for students to progress through: Anatomy Overview and Interactive Nerve Cutting. In the Anatomy Overview module, students view the skeletal, muscular, and nervous systems as well as each element of anatomy within them. As students interact each element, information is displayed explaining the element’s name, function, and relationship to other connecting elements. This allows students to learn how each piece of the 2 body is connected and affects one another. A special emphasis is placed on the nervous system, making sure students understand how the nerves affect various muscles and movements throughout the arm.The Interactive Nerve Cutting module focuses on teaching how a healthy arm performs a specific movement compared to an arm with a damaged nerve. Students actively simulate damage to a nerve anywhere in the arm to see the muscles affected depending upon the specific nerve damaged. Upon being damaged, the arm simulates how the movement is now performed and directly compares the difference to a healthy arm movement. Giving the user the freedom to damage nerves and see an animation comparing the newly damaged arm to a healthy arm should help support and motivate learning of nerve innervation. By creating a non-destructive VR experience to instruct students, we hope to support spatial visualization and critical reasoning, leading to increased comprehension of nerve and muscle relationships to help with future diagnosis of nerve damage.
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Virtual Reality, Education, Anatomy, Innervation, Muscle Dynamics, Nerve