J Psychol Cognition 2017 Volume 2 Issue 1 67 http://www.alliedacademies.org/journal-of-psychology-and-cognition/ Research Article Introduction Despite the progress in anesthesia and surgical methods, a common problem in surgical procedures using local or regional anesthesia is that many patients experience high levels of anxiety both before and during the operation. Their anxiety often arises from a lack of information or knowledge about medical procedures and they presume that such procedures will cause them pain and discomfort. Local and regional anesthesia are techniques used to render part of the body insensitive to pain without affecting consciousness; this means that during the operation patients can perceive everything that is happening around them: they can see doctors and nurses moving around, hear their voices and comments and so on. Patients with high levels of anxiety usually perceive the procedure to be more distressing than it really is. Therefore, anxiety is a common problem for patients who undergo surgical procedures, often associated with a number of negative behaviors during and after the surgical experience. Analgesics have been the mainstream solution for alleviating pain in the past. However, medications are often ineffective; some patients may experience high levels of pain after surgery, resulting in a high intake of extra analgesics, longer hospitalization, and slower recovery. Since drug treatments alone have frequently proven to be inadequate in reducig stress and anxiety in surgical contexts, there has been an increased interest in non-invasive supplementary medical therapies, including music [1,2] relaxation, guided imagery, hypnosis, etc., to reduce pain and tension during pre and post operative phases. Different experimental studies have shown that distraction techniques are effective in reducing pain and related anxiety. Management of procedure-related distress commonly includes the use of distraction techniques that intend to divert attention away from the procedure and instead focus attention on an activity or task [3,4]. Prior research has shown Virtual Reality (VR) distraction to be beneficial for patients who are undergoing painful medical procedures [5- 8]. It has also been shown that VR can be used in a sustained manner with positive results. Virtual environments are safe alternatives to medications, as they eliminate risk of dependence on drugs and cause minimal side effects. These advances have shifted towards using distraction and hypnosis techniques to treat pain [9]. Demonstrated in its utility as a distraction technique, VR can be considered as an innovative form of e-health therapy gaining further recognition as a means of attenuating pain during medical procedures. VR reduces distress and pain perception by providing a form of immersive distraction that taxes the patient's limited attention capacity, resulting in the withdrawal of attention from the real, noxious, external stimulus with a subsequent reduction in pain and stress [10]. This technology allows the patient to explore and manage several situations inspired to daily experiences, using the real correspondent behaviors in a more controlled, safe and low-cost setting than in real life situations. In the last few years VR has been applied for the assessment and rehabilitation of several psychological diseases like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder [11], anxiety [12], and eating disorders [13]. Furthermore, VR has been applied in neuropsychological domains like neglect Study of gender differences in VR response following cardiac surgery. Jose Luis Mosso 1 , Brenda K. Wiederhold 2 *, Filippo La Paglia 3 , Danilo Guarino 3 , Daniele La Barbera 3 , Jose Luis Mosso Jr. 4 , Ian Miller 5 , Mark D. Wiederhold 6 1 Clínica de Especialidades Alberto Pisanty Ovadía del ISSSTE, Hospital General y Regional Numero 25 del IMSS, Mexico 2 Virtual Reality Medical Institute, Brussels, Belgium 3 Università degli studi di Palermo, Palermo, Italy. 4 School of Medicine, Universidad Anahuac, Mexico City, Mexico 5 Interactive Media Institute, San Diego, California 6 Virtual Reality Medical Center, La Jolla, California Abstract Cardiac and other invasive surgical procedures cause signifcant anxiety and stress to patients and their family members. In this study Virtual Reality (VR) was used as a method to reduce stress, anxiety and pain in patients undergoing surgical procedures. This study compared a cohort of patients in the interval prior to and successive to the surgery, differentiating the responses achieved by males and females and comparing the effectiveness. The results are encouraging: they demonstrate the effcacy of VR treatment and the safety of the method and detection of differences in the responses based on gender. Keywords: Gender differences, Cardiac surgery, Anxiety, Stress, Surgery. Accepted on March 20, 2017