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Focused Review ARTICLE

Virtual reality and the role of the prefrontal cortex in adults and children

Lutz Jäncke¹*, Marcus Cheetham¹ and Thomas Baumgartner^1,2

Psychological Institute, Division Neuropsychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, Center for the Study of Social and Neural Systems, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

In this review, the neural underpinnings of the experience of presence are outlined. Firstly, it is shown that presence is associated with activation of a distributed network, which includes the dorsal and ventral visual stream, the parietal cortex, the premotor cortex, mesial temporal areas, the brainstem and the thalamus. Secondly, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is identified as a key node of the network as it modulates the activity of the network and the associated experience of presence. Thirdly, children lack the strong modulatory influence of the DLPFC on the network due to their unmatured frontal cortex. Fourthly, it is shown that presence-related measures are influenced by manipulating the activation in the DLPFC using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) while participants are exposed to the virtual roller coaster ride. Finally, the findings are discussed in the context of current models explaining the experience of presence, the rubber hand illusion, and out-of-body experiences.

Keywords:

brain imaging, fmRI, presence, DLPFC, children, adults, brain maturation

Citation:

JÃƒÂ¤ncke L, Cheetham M and Baumgartner T (2009). Virtual reality and the role of the prefrontal cortex in adults and children. Front. Neurosci . 3,1: 52Ã‚Â–59. doi: 10.3389/neuro.01.006.20009

Received:

05 February 2009;

Paper pending published:

24 February 2009;

Accepted:

06 March 2009;

Published online:

01 May 2009.

Edited by:

Robert T. Knight, University of California, Berkeley, USA

Reviewed by:

Lars Schwabe, University of Rostock, Germany
Robert T. Knight, University of California, Berkeley, USA

© 2009 Jäncke, Cheetham and Baumgartner. This is an open-access article subject to an exclusive license agreement between the authors and the Frontiers Research Foundation, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited.

*Correspondence:

Lutz Jäncke, University Zurich, Psychological Institute, Division Neuropsychology, Binzmühlestrasse 14, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland. e-mail: l.jaencke@psychologie.uzh.ch