Digital Vaccines are a technology that has entered our lives after walking out of science fiction. In an experiment conducted, a child's digital avatar is entered into a game in the metaverse. In the virtual reality experience, the child's brain is tuned to avoid food that could later lead to lifestyle diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. As a result of this neuro-cognitive training, the child avoids unhealthy food even in real life. In short, the child has been given 'digital vaccines'. But what are these digital vaccines?  

They are part of an emerging science called digital therapeutics. This science stream aims to deliver medical care through smartphones, tablets and similar devices. As the COVID-19 continues to affect every aspect of life, a new normal is being established. In this scenario, scientists around the globe are attempting to build new biological vaccines for COVID-19. In addition, there is an increasing recognition that societies must look beyond biological methods alone to build resilience by finding new types of therapies for COVID-19 and similar infectious diseases.  

Birth of Digital Vaccines 

A Chennai-based entrepreneur and founder of the life sciences start-up FriendsLearn, Bhargav Sri Prakash was given a patent by the US patent and trademark office for the 'systems and methods for digital vaccine' that he developed part of the US Carnegie Mellon University's digital vaccine project. Prakash is a mechanical engineer from Chennai. He said that there are no injections or ingestion in digital vaccines. In contrast, the brain is induced through an immersive metaverse experience to develop specific physiological changes to avoid diseases. Usually, when a vaccine is developed, it goes to doctors. But digital vaccines go to schools where it works with children by letting their digital avatars experience their actions' positive and negative aspects, which serve as learnings for life.  

According to Carnegie Mellon University's website, video games on mobile devices significantly influence children's minds. Hence, they find strong evidence of the positive effect of the game on real food choices and identify strategic gameplay patterns associated with better actual food choices. Furthermore, after experiencing virtual reality and simulation, Prakash and his team found that they could simulate a set of scenarios involving food and games and deliberately send messages to the brain to link areas working in memory, self-regulation, and rewards.  

When a digital avatar enters the metaverse, a lot of data about the child's behavior is gathered. Then, AI processes this data to decipher which kind of experience the child should be exposed to facilitate "implicit learning". 

By repeatedly creating associations between specific actions and their consequences in the virtual world, such as falling ill or winning a reward, the child would be guided towards a path to a healthy lifestyle. In a way, this action is the opposite of what advertising companies are meant to work for. Through their ads, they woo children into buying their products. 

Digital Vaccine for infectious diseases 

As part of their Digital Vaccine project, Carnegie Mellon University has proposed to re-purpose the platform to contain infectious diseases such as COVID-19 through dynamic neurobehavioral-physiological modulation. Practicing good physical hygiene contributes to a significant share of being safe from COVID-19. The digital vaccine will be used to provide neuro-cognitive training to users to nudge them towards adopting hygiene practices. The functioning of the vaccine will be administered via a gamified-mobile application that will be culturally sensitive and customizable. The application will entail deep levels of personalization and localization based on the target audience's geographical, social, and cultural realms. For instance, if the research is conducted to improve hand hygiene in Tamil Nadu, the area's sociological, environmental and regional norms will be considered.  

The dynamic content configuration embedded through engagement mechanisms proven for neuro-cognitive training will allow rapid deployment of the digital vaccine. According to a report in MedAdNews magazine, the market for digital therapeutics is expected to grow to $13.1 billion by 2026, compared to the $3.4 billion in 2021. AI provides a system of rule based/ supervised/ unsupervised learning frameworks moderated through human intervention that can stay ahead of an epidemic based on data. 

Sources:

The Hindu Business Line

The Carnegie Mellon University