Immersive Learning for Alpine Rescue through Neuroscience and eXtended Reality Technologies: the project ALPINE-XR

The ALPINE-XR project addresses a shared challenge in the cross-border area between Italy and Switzerland: the growing difficulty of training emergency medicine personnel for complex, rare, and unpredictable alpine rescue scenarios. Existing training systems struggle to replicate real operational stress and often exclude volunteers and less experienced individuals due to high costs, limited accessibility, and limited scalability and adaptability to different training needs. In this scenario, the main objective of ALPINE-XR is to design and implement an immersive training system for emergency medicine, applying an educational approach based on neuroscience and learning sciences, emerging eXtended Reality (XR) technologies, and simulations in climate chambers. Such a system should constitute an ecologically valid learning experience that effectively reproduces the objective and perceived difficulties of high-altitude rescue and improves performance across all skill levels. The project will transform current training models, making them more accessible, inclusive, and scientifically grounded, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of rescue operations in high-risk alpine contexts.