Knowledge maps as a complementary tool to learn and teach surgical anatomy in virtual reality: A case study in dental implantology

A thorough understanding of surgical anatomy is essential for preparing and training medical students to become competent and skilled surgeons. While Virtual Reality (VR) has shown to be a suitable interaction paradigm for surgical training, traditional anatomical VR models often rely on simple labels and arrows pointing to relevant landmarks. Yet, studies have indicated that such visual settings could benefit from knowledge maps as such representations explicitly illustrate the conceptual connections between anatomical landmarks. In this article, a VR educational tool is presented designed to explore the potential of knowledge maps as a complementary visual encoding for labeled 3D anatomy models. Focusing on surgical anatomy for implantology, it was investigated whether integrating knowledge maps within a VR environment could improve students' understanding and retention of complex anatomical relationships. The study involved 30 master's students in dentistry and 3 anatomy teachers, who used the tool and were subsequently assessed through surgical anatomy quizzes (measuring both completion times and scores) and subjective feedback (assessing user satisfaction, preferences, system usability, and task workload). The results showed that using knowledge maps in an immersive environment facilitates learning and teaching surgical anatomy applied to implantology, serving as a complementary tool to conventional VR educational methods.