25 people learned to fly with virtual wings. Here’s how the brain changed

After flight training, the brain began treating wings more like real limbs

In a new study, volunteers were trained to move wings in VR. Here, neuroscientist and study coauthor Yiyang Cai uses the system. Her physical movements (top left) correspond to the real-time visual feedback inside the VR head-mounted display (center).

Ziyi Xiong/Beijing Normal University and Yiyang Cai/Peking University

In X-Men, Warren Worthington III sprouts huge white wings from his back and shoots into the sky.