The practice of reverse engineering is not only receiving increased attention in fields involving artificial systems such as computer software development, but also in fields involving natural systems such as molecular and cellular biology. As an example, a recent pronouncement of the National Academy of Engineering lists "reverse engineering the human brain" as one of the grand challenges for the next century. The applicability of engineering design principles to natural systems has been well recognized, but ambitious attempts to further reverse engineer such complex systems will require the latest advances in design thinking. The recent concept of design affordance readily lends itself to the analysis and understanding of complex natural systems that exhibit multiple interactions between subsystems.

Virtual reality is a new and developing technique entering the medical community that may be effective in relieving pain. A specific type of pain termed phantom limb pain (PLP), is the occurrence of pain in an area that has been amputated and is reported to affect more than 50% of patients with amputations. Currently, the treatment of phantom limb pain is highly variable in the strategies used and their effectiveness. Based on the theory of maladaptive cortical reorganization causing PLP, we hypothesized that the use of a virtual reality intervention would elicit a reduction in PLP. Using the Oxford Centre of Evidence‐based Medicine (OCEBM) classification, a systematic review of the literature, was conducted to determine the pathophysiological mechanisms contributing to PLP and how virtual reality techniques could beneficially impact cortical reorganization. Based on OCEBM, the majority of the articles reviewed were level 2 evidence and supported virtual reality as a resource for alleviating PLP. We concluded that the available evidence supports that the use of virtual reality could be an alternative treatment for PLP and could decrease PLP.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

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