Visible Heart® Laboratories

Extended reality (XR)—which includes virtual reality, mixed reality, and augmented reality—is helping students learn physiology. In this review, a @UMNews team explains that, in addition to lectures and textbooks, physiology education was traditionally performed during laboratory sessions, often using anesthetized animals such as frogs and dogs. In the early 1900s, French physiologist Claude Bernard “implemented experimental physiology using animal models.” Between the 1900s and 1950s, training laboratories that used animals became standard, and by the 1970s and 1980s, ethical concerns began to reduce animal use. Today, XR is used in physiology education to present dynamic processes that are difficult to demonstrate with static models, including muscle contraction and renal function. A key advantage of XR over traditional laboratories is that it is scalable and easy to distribute. With these advantages, XR further supports a shift away from using animals to demonstrate dynamic physiological processes. By @VisibleHeartLab, @UMNIEM, and @UMNBME. Read the full review here: sciencedirect.com/science/ar… #MedEd #MedicalEducation #VirtualReality #AugmentedReality #ExtendedReality