Dr. Adam Gazzaley - Brain Optimization and The Future of Psychedelic Medicine | The Tim Ferriss Show

Tim Ferriss reconnects with longtime friend Adam Gazzaley to trace his journey from the Nature cover story on the NeuroRacer video game to building Neuroscape into a 40-plus-person center. They discuss how an adaptive, closed-loop video game (EndeavorRx) earned the first-ever FDA clearance as a digital treatment for ADHD and why a single intervention can help across conditions like autism, depression, and multiple sclerosis. The conversation then turns to the big announcement: Neuroscape is launching a psychedelic research division led by Robin Carhart-Harris, joining from the UK. Gazzaley frames psychedelics as 'experiential medicine,' arguing the unexplored 'middle' between basic science and clinical trials is set and setting, which he wants to study with multimodal biosensing and multi-sensory environments to build personalized, closed-loop psychedelic experiences. He closes with how listeners can contribute knowledge and philanthropic funding toward a 20 million dollar goal.

• Adam Gazzaley is the David Dolby Distinguished Professor of Neurology, Physiology and Psychiatry at UCSF and founder of Neuroscape, having filed multiple patents including the first video game cleared by the FDA.
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• During COVID in summer 2020, the FDA cleared EndeavorRx as a treatment for inattention in 8-to-12-year-olds with ADHD, the first FDA-cleared digital treatment for children and first video game for any clinical condition.
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• Neuroscape is launching a new psychedelic research division with Robin Carhart-Harris joining as faculty and founding director, holding the Ralph Metzner Distinguished Professorship.
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• Reading Michael Pollan's 'How to Change Your Mind' gave Gazzaley the epiphany that psychedelics are experiential medicines, not classic molecular drugs, paralleling his video game work.
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• Gazzaley defines the missing 'middle' of psychedelic science: optimizing, personalizing, and precisely targeting delivery between basic-science insights and large clinical trials.
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• He aims to open the 'black box' of the psychedelic session using multimodal biosensing and to build a closed-loop psychedelic experience that adapts the environment in real time.
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• Tim Ferriss reveals UCSF can now accept cryptocurrency donations for Neuroscape, which he believes may be a first for a major university.
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• Certain cognitive abilities begin to decline as early as the early-to-mid 20s.
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• The NeuroRacer study improved 60-plus-year-olds' multitasking to levels exceeding untrained 20-year-olds, with EEG-documented neural changes.
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• Unpublished follow-up data shows older adults retained NeuroRacer benefits six years later without playing the game again or any booster sessions.
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• EndeavorRx has been validated in published studies across autism, depression, ADHD, and multiple sclerosis, all showing improved attention.
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• The Duke pivotal trial (led by Scott Kollins) was a multi-site, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 350 children with ADHD costing millions of dollars.
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• EndeavorRx is a Class II medical device cleared through the slower, more rigorous de novo FDA pathway because no predicate treatment existed.
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• UCSF has no undergraduate campus or general engineering department; it is purely a medical and health center, consistently ranked among the world's top in neuroscience.
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• Robin Carhart-Harris is the most-cited researcher in the psychedelics field and is relocating from the UK to UCSF.
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• Tim Ferriss describes doing a five-session series of intravenous ketamine infusions, choosing one DVD to keep constant across all sessions to minimize variables.
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• Neuroscape's multimodal biosensing combines high-density EEG, facial expression, electrodermal activity, heart-rate variability, and body movement with machine learning to map a person's experiential state.
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