As founder and executive director of Neuroscape at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Adam Gazzaley, M.D., Ph.D., tackles the mechanics of neural circuitry. His tool of the trade? Video games that boost memory and attention. One of the first, NeuroRacer, was, as Nature wrote in 2013, a game changer, designed to help boost cognitive abilities in older adults. Others followed, including EndeavorRx, the first FDA-authorized video game and digital treatment for ADHD.
The closed-loop design of the games taps neuronal activity and feeds it back into the game experience to target the intervention needed. At Neuroscape, artificial intelligence does some of that lifting, taking neural data to alter the experience for patients. Gazzaley believes this work is critical, especially today, to help solve a “cognition crisis” facing many. He sees these games as the intervention.
“Most people do not think of experience as medicine, certainly not the way they do a pill,” he said. “It has just been marginalized as the alternative.”
Gazzaley, the David Dolby Distinguished Professor at UCSF, earned his M.D. and Ph.D. in neuroscience from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, completed a neurology residency at the University of Pennsylvania and did his postdoctoral training in cognitive neuroscience at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the co-author of The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World, and hosted a PBS show based on the book. He’s also served as a scientific advisor for companies including Apple, GE, Deloitte, and the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition.
He is the co-founder and chief science advisor of Akili Interactive Labs, and a Venture Partner with JAZZ Venture Partners. He has also authored more than 200 scientific articles, 800 invited presentations, and multiple patents for his inventions.
Gazzaley, who spoke at DOC in 2024, will update us on his research on neuromodulation on the second day at DOC 2026. We’re thrilled he’s joining us again at DOC, and can’t wait to hear more about his work.