Adam Gazzaley

The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World

Our increasingly information-saturated world, coupled with growing expectations of constant availability and immediate responsiveness, places excessive demands on our brains. The consequences are detrimental effects on our safety, health, education, workplace, and relationships with family and friends.

Dr. Gazzaley takes us on a journey into how and why we struggle with interruptions and distractions that emerge from both our inner and outer worlds. The very essence of how we’ve evolved makes most humans collide head-first with our brain’s limitations in cognitive control.

He concludes by offering practical strategies for modifying our behavior, as well as the latest innovations from his research in enhancing our brain’s function so that we can better survive and thrive in the information age.

AI and the Brain

Dr. Gazzaley explores how artificial intelligence and neuroscience are coming together to expand the boundaries of human potential. From AI-powered video games that improve cognitive function of seniors to smart wearables that detect depression from a person’s voice, discover how cutting-edge technology is enhancing our minds and mental well-being.

Drawing on his groundbreaking work in experiential medicine and closed-loop neurotechnology, Dr. Gazzaley reveals a future where personalized, adaptive brain therapies could help us learn faster, focus deeper, and overcome mental health challenges.

Attendees will hear inspiring case studies – notably, his advancement of the first FDA-approved video game. Importantly, this talk doesn’t shy away from the big questions: What are the ethical and societal implications when brains and AI intertwine? How do we safeguard privacy and humanity in this high-tech revolution? With equal parts scientific insight and visionary foresight, your audience will come away with a fresh understanding of emerging neurotechnologies, a glimpse of tomorrow’s brain-enhancing tools, and an appreciation for how this new frontier benefits everyone in a responsible, human-centered way.

Technology Meets Neuroscience – A Vision of the Future of Brain Optimization

A fundamental challenge of modern society is the development of effective approaches to enhance brain function and cognition in both the healthy and impaired. For the healthy, this should be a core mission of our educational system andfor the cognitively impaired this should be a primary goal of our medical system. Unfortunately, neither of these systems has effectively met this challenge.

Dr. Gazzaley presents a novel approach he developed at UCSF Neuroscape that uses custom-designed video games to achieve meaningful and sustainable cognitive enhancement via personalized closed-loop systems.

He also shares the next stage of his research program, which integrates closed-loop video games with the latest technological innovations in software (e.g., brain-computer interfaces, AI) and hardware (e.g., virtual reality, mobile EEG, motion capture, physiological recording devices, brain stimulation) to enhance our brain’s information processing systems with the ultimate aim of improving our brain function.

Raging Against Aging: The Future of Brain Optimization and Longevity

One of the greatest achievements of modern times has been to dramatically increase the longevity of our species. While this is a cause for celebration, it should be recognized that it has resulted in numerous challenges in maintaining quality of life due to a near-ubiquitous decline in cognitive function with aging.

Dr. Gazzaley describes the latest research on the aging brain and the challenges faced by an increasingly older population on a global level.

He shares practical advice on how to retain our cognition as we age, as well as a novel approach that he’s been developing to use cutting-edge technology (custom-designed video games, artificial intelligence, brain stimulation, and Virtual reality) to achieve meaningful and sustainable cognitive enhancement throughout our lives.

The Promise of Virtual Reality and the Brain

The long-awaited arrival of virtual and augmented reality is upon us. Consumer-available products hold seemingly infinite promise in changing communication, entertainment, and commerce. But what about our brains?

Dr. Gazzaley takes us on a deep dive into how virtual and augmented reality technologies can help enhance our cognition, with benefits to our memory, attention, decision-making, and even empathy and compassion.

In this context of improving cognition, he discusses the potential educational and medical uses for these powerful new technologies.

The Cognition Crisis

Our lives on this planet have improved in so many amazing ways over the last century. On average we are now healthier, less poor, more literate, less violent, and longer living. Despite these positive changes, signs are present that we are in the midst of an emerging crisis. This is a crisis of our minds – a cognition crisis.

Dr. Gazzaley presents his latest perspectives on the difficulties we humans are currently facing in terms of our attention, perception, creativity, emotional regulation, and compassion. Anxiety, depression, attention deficits, and dementia affect half a billion people around the world with an economic toll in the trillions. And these numbers are rising, notably in our children.

He proposes that the goal of enhancing cognition should placed on par with other pressing global priorities. He concludes with a presentation of potential solutions using modern-day technology.