What You Should Know:
– Ketamine One is now collaborating with OVR Technology to provide a first-of-its-kind VR scent experience as part of its patient treatment programs to provide its INHALE Wellness Platform over an initial term of two years in Ketamine One’s clinics. The INHALE Wellness Platform is an olfactory-enabled VR platform designed to deepen immersion, promote relaxation and help manage stress.
As part of the agreement, OVR Technology will provide its proprietary technology and services for Ketamine One to use with its psychedelic-assisted treatments involving ketamine, psilocybin, DMT and MDMA in order to help improve patient outcomes. OVR Technology’s INHALE Wellness Platform combines the benefits of mindfulness, breathwork and meditation with the next generation of aromatherapy. It includes a head-mounted display, the ION device (the “ION”) and scent cartridges, as well as several scent-focused nature scenes. The ION is lightweight, wireless and emits scent particles in coordination with VR technology designed to deepen a patient’s immersive experience.
How Scent-Enabled VR Works
OVR Technology’s Architecture of Scent® platform brings together software, Scentware™, and hardware via the ION, while also including replaceable cartridges and an Olfactory Experience Engine that allows scent to be triggered during a VR experience. Scents delivered through the ION are water-based and made from a combination of natural and synthetic ingredients that have undergone extensive testing. While VR technology is widely known to incorporate sight and sound, this partnership provides Ketamine One with the capability to generate more realistic Immersive Virtual Reality (“IVR”) service offerings via scent at its network of clinics, which is expected to enhance experiences and help improve patient treatment outcomes.
The concept for the Architecture of Scent® and ION device was based on the idea that scent in VR could dramatically increase immersion. Computer simulations in which patients can interact within virtual three-dimensional environments can help put patients in calming settings and improve relaxation through the addition of scents. Research has shown that scents elicit emotional and evocative associations and can immediately alter mood. Other research shows that, as soon as an odor is registered by the brain, it activates the amygdala-hippocampal complex in the limbic system where emotions, memories, and associations are processed, nearly instantaneously.
“We believe that the ION device contains the most accurate on-mask scent technology currently available on the market. The ability for our clinicians to alter perceptual experiences with VR and the ION is extremely promising. Optimizing the therapeutic setting is one of the main goals of our VR-based research and development program and being able to utilize the sense of smell to help patients relax, reduce tension and lower stress is expected to result in the development of a comprehensive treatment,” said Dr. Quang Henderson, Chair of Ketamine One’s Clinic Innovation Council.
