(This article was created in collaboration with Claude AI)
Key Takeaways:
The Mind Crisis Is Here. Over half a billion people worldwide suffer from what Dr. Adam Gazzaley, neuroscientist at the University of California at San Francisco, calls “debilitating effects of impaired cognition.”
Video Games as Medicine. Gazzaley’s team achieved FDA approval for the first and only video game as a treatment for clinical conditions, prescribed alongside Adderall for children with ADHD, with a second approval for adults.
Closed-Loop Experiences Are Key. These digital therapeutics use personalized, real-time interactions that can selectively activate brain networks — “something that we have never accomplished with any drug or stimulation device,” he says.
The Future Is Multimodal. Gazzaley’s team is now conducting experiments with 180 electrodes recording brain and body signals, aiming to “interpret state, arousal, awareness, aspects of attention and valence in real time.”
Psychedelics Meet Digital Therapy. His next study will test whether the psychedelic effect of being on psilocybin and MDMA while in closed-loop digital environments can be used to guide the therapeutic experience.
When UCSF neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley’s video game received FDA approval as a medical treatment, the digital approach became the first of its kind in history.
At DOC 2024‘s “Advanced Diagnostics and Therapeutics” session, Gazzaley explained why this breakthrough matters: traditional approaches to mental health aren’t working. While pharmaceuticals have effectively decreased morbidity and mortality from infectious disease and heart disease, mental health has moved in the opposite direction — increasing anxiety, depression in children, and suicide rates in seniors.
“We need to break that paradigm. We need to think about new medicine,” he said.
His suggestion? Digital therapeutics that create what he calls “closed-loop experiences” — environments where challenges, rewards, and stimuli update in real time based on individual data.
“It’s the nature of those interactions that are activating the brain network selectively. That is something that we have never accomplished with any drug or stimulation device,” he explained.
Fifteen years ago, Gazzaley started working on a video game designed to improve cognitive function. Working with LucasArts developers, his team created challenges and rewards specifically targeting attention abilities.
The results, published on Nature’s cover in 2013, with the words, “Game Changer,” showed that older adults improved their attention and memory after playing the game for one month.
After almost 25 research studies, that game became “the first and still only video game approved by the FDA as a treatment for a clinical condition” — for children with ADHD. “It is prescribable right alongside Adderall,” he noted, with a second approval for adult over-the-counter treatment.
Now Gazzaley is pushing further. His team conducts experiments with 180 electrodes that record brain and body signals while participants engage in immersive environments. “The goal is to be able to interpret state, arousal, awareness, aspects of attention, and valence in real time to guide this experience,” he explained.
The system combines multimodal recordings with multisensory stimulation powered by AI, creating environments that utilize physiological data to challenge and reward users in ways that can maintain and enhance cognition.
His next project? Combining this approach with psychedelic therapy. An upcoming study will test older adults in the multimodal system while receiving psilocybin or MDMA.
The goal is to harness the brain-changing effects of psychedelics within guided digital environments — creating what could be an entirely new form of treatment.