Application

• Social anxiety, characterized by an acute fear of social interactions and the associated fear of negative evaluation, is one of the most common psychiatric disorders. The condition, manifesting universally across diverse demographic groups, extends beyond typical shyness and often impedes the development of meaningful social relationships, hinders academic and professional achievement, and undermines overall well-being. Given its multifaceted implications, effective mitigation and treatment of social anxiety is a key target for enhancing community and individual health.
• The ongoing war in Israel has created a prolonged period of stress, uncertainty, tension, and disruptions of daily life, which may have an intensifying impact on social anxiety. A significant impact is related to substantial population evacuations, potentially intensifying anxiety among those already distressed.
• Current pharmacotherapy for social anxiety (usually selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors – SSRIs) is often ineffective.
• Recent advancements in VR technology enable the creation of a platform dedicated to addressing social anxiety challenges. Such a platform has the potential to overcome many of the challenges associated with traditional treatment methods and offer innovative solutions in the realm of social anxiety interventions. VR’s real-time assessment, including eye gaze and pupil dilation measurements, provides a unique advantage in treatment assessment and detailed outcomes compared to self-report methods. These provide insights into the sympathetic system’s activity, serving as a proxy for stress and anxiety levels during treatment. By recreating controlled social situations, VR not only offers customizable exposure therapy but also enriches outcome assessments. Recent technological advances make high-quality simulations accessible for widespread use across various healthcare, psychological treatment, and private settings.

Our Innovation

An innovative VR product, based on state-of-the-art AI tools, which provide extremely high-quality applications including speech-to-text, text analysis and creation and text-to-speech.

Advantages

• Our approach allows for gradual exposure, beginning with simple interactions and progressing to more complex scenarios, providing a personalized experience for individuals.
• The VR setting will establish a secure and encouraging environment, enabling users to practice and refine their social skills. This approach will allow users to systematically acclimate to increasingly challenging social situations, providing a nuanced and tailored intervention for social anxiety.
• A noteworthy advantage of our development is its applicability to children, adolescents, and young adults, a demographic currently underserved in available resources. The flexibility of VR allows for age-appropriate interventions, addressing the needs of younger populations contending with socialanxiety.
• Our technology offers clinicians real-time monitoring capabilities, allowing them to adjust the treatment pace dynamically, fostering a more adaptive and responsive treatment environment.

Opportunity

The distinctive features of our project are designed to appeal to companies specializing in mental health solutions, virtual therapy, and educational technology, by offering a versatile tool that can be seamlessly integrated into educational programs.