Grace Leung 梁一心

  • Croucher Cambridge International Scholarship in 2022 at University of Cambridge

About Grace Leung’s work

Grace Leung does interdisciplinary research in psychiatry, digital mental health, and virtual reality. Her research focuses on individual differences that may affect the efficacy and therapeutic outcomes of virtual reality (VR) biofeedback interventions in the treatment for anxiety and stress.

VR biofeedback uses individuals’ real-time physiological data to create an immersive, dynamic, and interactive environment where users can learn to self-regulate their physiological responses, for instance, through respiratory modulation. Achieving such physiological control can in turn improve users’ psychological well-being .

Despite its clinical significance, the ability to control physiological responses is subjected to individual differences that can be explained by implicit theories and relates to the perceived stability of human attributes. Incremental mindset plays an important role in developing adaptive emotion-regulation strategies towards challenges and buffering adverse consequences associated with stressful environments. In particular, the mindset of anxiety is associated with motivation to engage in psychotherapy and even treatment success, suggesting the potential of mindsets in influencing therapeutic outcomes of biofeedback training. Leung’s study demonstrates potential to improve community mental health with state-of-the-art technology.

Biography

Grace Leung is a PhD student in Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, where she also earned her MPhil in Psychiatry. She received a BSS in Psychology with First Class Honours at the University of Hong Kong. She has previously been awarded the HKU-Cambridge Hughes Hall Scholarship.