The metaverse revolution in neurological education: technical infrastructure, clinical applications, and educational efficacy

In the context of medical education transformation in the 21st century, neurology and neurosurgery education face multiple structural challenges, including complex neuroanatomy, scarcity of cadaveric specimens, and stringent safety requirements. Through systematic literature review and theoretical modeling, this study explores the current application status, technical infrastructure, and educational efficacy of Metaverse technology in this field. A four-layer analytical framework comprising the "Infrastructure Layer, Cognitive Layer, Clinical Decision-making Layer, and Ethical Governance Layer" was constructed to systematically analyze key technologies such as Head-Mounted Displays (HMD), haptic feedback, and digital twins. Empirical evidence demonstrates that Metaverse technology effectively reconstructs spatial cognition, showing significant advantages in enhancing spatial reasoning in neuroanatomy, clinical thinking training via Virtual Standardized Patients (VSP), and stroke team collaboration simulations. However, challenges such as cybersickness, insufficient haptic fidelity, and data privacy ethics remain bottlenecks for large-scale adoption. The Metaverse is best characterized as a "progressive enhancement tool" for traditional neurological education rather than a complete replacement. Future research should focus on multi-center prospective studies to verify its long-term impact on real-world clinical performance.

Key Words: Metaverse; neurological education; virtual reality; digital twin; educational efficacy; theoretical framework