October 20th: Day of Dialog and Practice: Mind Training in the Digital Era
As we traverse the digital age, our bonds with technology continue to intensify, reshaping the landscape of our neural pathways and deepening our collective dopamine addiction. It's a symbiotic relationship that challenges our mental resilience and calls for deeper understanding.
On Friday, October 20th, we will discuss how to counterbalance this narrative by harnessing the power of mind-training, mindfulness, mind-body practices, meditation, and more. Together with experts in the neural correlates of concentration, meditative states, mind wandering, stress, and creativity, we will explore how to nurture a balanced mind amidst the pulsing energy of the digital world.
This day of dialog is meant to lay the groundwork for a larger gathering in March, 2024, which will combine the best of 5,000 years of mind training tradition with the cutting edge of modern neuroscience research and technologies.
Come ready with your questions and ideas: along with a group of world-renowned scientists and technologists, together we will navigate uncharted territories of mind training, dissect the dopamine dilemma, and surface innovative strategies for harmonizing our technological interactions.
This is the beginning of a larger conversation of now we can unlock a state of cognitive equilibrium where technology serves us, not the other way around. Ultimately, we are looking for ways to empower ourselves, our families, our communities, and society with the best that science has to offer to face an increasingly dopamine-driven world.
Friday Presenters
Elissa Epel, Ph.D, is a Professor and Vice Chair in the Department of Psychiatry, at University of California, San Francisco. She is an international expert on stress, well-being, and optimal aging and a best-selling author. She studies the environmental, psychological, behavioral, and social factors that impact cellular aging (such as telomeres, inflammation, and mitochondria), and is also focusing on climate wellness. She studies how self-care practices such as meditation and positive stress can promote psychological and physiological thriving and is interested in large-scale interventions for communal well-being and health equity. She co-wrote the New York Times best-seller “The Telomere Effect: A revolutionary approach to living younger, longer” with Nobel Laureate Elizabeth Blackburn (translated into 30 languages) and the new “Stress Prescription,” an independent bookstore best seller. She enjoys leading science-based meditation retreats. Epel is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, current President of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, and co-chair of the Mind & Life Institute Steering Council. She has served as a consultant to NIH, CDC, Facebook, Apple, United Health, and UC campus-wide initiatives on stress and health. Epel’s research has been featured in venues such as TEDMED, Wisdom 2.0, NBC’s Today Show, CBS’s Morning Show, 60 minutes, National Public Radio, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and science documentaries. In 2022, she was named as a highly cited researcher, among the top .1% of researchers globally (based on publication impact).
Elissa Epel, UCSF
Stress Resilience and Responses, Cellular Stress Pathways
Jud Brewer MD PhD (“Dr. Jud”) is a New York Times best-selling author and thought leader in the field of habit change and the “science of self-mastery”, having combined over 25 years of experience with mindfulness training with his scientific research therein. He is the Director of Research and Innovation at the Mindfulness Center and professor in Behavioral and Social Sciences and Psychiatry at the Schools of Public Health & Medicine at Brown University. A psychiatrist and internationally known expert in mindfulness training for addictions, Brewer has developed and tested novel mindfulness programs for habit change, including both in-person and app-based treatments for smoking, emotional eating, and anxiety. He has also studied the underlying neural mechanisms of mindfulness using standard and real-time fMRI and EEG neurofeedback. He has trained US Olympic athletes and coaches, foreign government ministers, and his work has been featured on 60 Minutes, TED (4th most viewed talk of 2016, with 19+ Million views), the New York Times, Time magazine (top 100 new health discoveries of 2013), Forbes, BBC, NPR, Al Jazeera (documentary about his research), Businessweek and others. His work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association, among others. Dr. Brewer founded MindSciences (which merged with Sharecare Inc. in 2020) to move his discoveries of clinical evidence behind mindfulness for anxiety, eating, smoking and other behavior change into the hands of consumers (see www.drjud.com for more information). He is the author of The Craving Mind: from cigarettes to smartphones to love, why we get hooked and how we can break bad habits (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), the New York Times best-seller, Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind (Avery/Penguin Random House, 2021) and the forthcoming book The Hunger Habit: why we eat when we’re not hungry and how to stop (Avery/Penguin Random House, 2024).
Judson Brewer, Brown
Mindfulness, Neural Plasticity, Breaking Habit Cycles
Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. is Professor of Medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he founded its world-renown Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Clinic in 1979, and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society (CFM), in 1995. Both the MBSR Clinic and the CFM are now part of UMassMemorial Health.
Jon lectures and leads mindfulness retreats around the world and online.
ABOUT JON KABAT-ZINN
Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. is Professor of Medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he founded its world-renown Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Clinic in 1979, and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society (CFM), in 1995. Both the MBSR Clinic and the CFM are now part of UMassMemorial Health.
Jon did his doctoral work in molecular biology at MIT, in the laboratory Salvador Luria. He is the author of 15 books, currently in print in over 45 languages. His most recent is Mindfulness Meditation for Pain Relief (April 2023). He is also the author of a series of research papers on MBSR dating back to 1982. In a 2021 study of trends and developments in mindfulness research over 55 years (1966-2021), three of his empirical studies figure among the ten most cited articles on mindfulness (nos. 3, 5, and 9) in the scientific literature; and a review article he authored is number two among citations of the top ten review articles on mindfulness.
His work and that of a global community of colleagues has contributed to a growing movement of mindfulness into mainstream institutions such as medicine, psychology, health care, neuroscience, schools, higher education, business, social justice, criminal justice, prisons, the law, technology, the military, government, and professional sports. Over 700 hospitals and medical centers around the world now offer MBSR.
Jon Kabat-Zinn’s books, his app and other guided meditation programs, his public and professional talks, and his in-person and online retreats describe and invoke the cultivation of mindfulness in such commonsensical, relevant, and compelling terms that its practice has become a way of life for many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people around the world.
Jon Kabat-Zinn, (remote)
Mindfulness Techniques, Stress Reduction, Health of Humanity
Dr. Alia Crum, Associate (tenured) Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and Director of the Stanford Mind & Body Lab. Dr. Crum is a world expert on mindsets and beliefs and how they shape our responses to stress, exercise, and even to the foods we eat Crum's research focuses on how changes in subjective mindsets - the lenses through which information is perceived, organized, and interpreted - can alter objective reality through behavioral, psychological, and physiological mechanisms. Her work is, in part, inspired by research on the placebo effect, a remarkable and consistent demonstration of the ability of the mindset to elicit healing properties in the body. She is interested in understanding how mindsets affect important outcomes outside the realm of medicine, in the domains of behavioral health and organizational behavior. More specifically, she aims to understand how mindsets can be consciously and deliberately changed through intervention to affect organizational and individual performance, physiological and psychological well-being, and interpersonal effectiveness.
Alia Crum, Stanford
Optimizing your Mindset, Peak Performance, Mindset Change Mechanism
Ed Boyden is Y. Eva Tan Professor in Neurotechnology at MIT, an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the MIT McGovern Institute, and professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Media Arts and Sciences, and Biological Engineering at MIT. He leads the Synthetic Neurobiology Group, which develops tools for analyzing and repairing complex biological systems, such as the brain, and applies them systematically to reveal ground truth principles of biological function and to repair these systems. These inventions include optogenetic tools, which enable control of neural activity with light; expansion microscopy, which enables ordinary microscopes to do nanoimaging; new tools for high-speed imaging of living biological signals and networks; noninvasive brain stimulation strategies that may help with conditions ranging from Alzheimer's to blindness; and new strategies for inexpensively creating 3-D nanotechnology. He co-directs the MIT Center for Neurobiological Engineering and the MIT K. Lisa Yang Center for Bionics, and is a faculty member of the MIT Center for Environmental Health Sciences, Computational & Systems Biology Initiative, and Koch Institute. Amongst other recognitions, he has received the Wilhelm Exner Medal (2020), the Croonian Medal (2019), the Lennart Nilsson Award (2019), the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize (2019), the Rumford Prize (2019), the Canada Gairdner International Award (2018), the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences (2016), the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2015), the Carnegie Prize in Mind and Brain Sciences (2015), the Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award (2013), the Grete Lundbeck Brain Prize (2013), the NIH Director's Pioneer Award (2013), and the Perl/UNC Neuroscience Prize (2011). He was named to the World Economic Forum Young Scientist list (2013) and the Technology Review World’s "Top 35 Innovators under Age 35" list (2006), and is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences (2019), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2017), the National Academy of Inventors (2017), and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (2018). His group has hosted hundreds of visitors to learn how to use new biotechnologies, and he also regularly teaches at summer courses and workshops in neuroscience, and delivers lectures to the broader public (e.g., TED (2011), TED Summit (2016), World Economic Forum (2012, 2013, 2016)).
Ed Boyden, MIT
Computational and Neural Modeling for Mindfulness
Dr. Jay Sanguinetti stands at the intersection of neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and contemplative science. He is a distinguished speaker, scientist, and entrepreneur, as well as a developing meditation teacher. He is the President of Sanmai Technologies, Public Benefit Corporation in Silicon Valley, and the Assistant Director of the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona. Specializing in psychophysiological measures such as EEG, fMRI, and eye-tracking, Dr. Sanguinetti has investigated many domains, including the complex neural dynamics of visual perception, emotion, and mindfulness meditation. He has also explored the neural basis of depression, anxiety, and Parkinson’s Disease. His team is at the cutting edge of neuroscience, exploring innovative forms of brain stimulation, including ultrasound and light-based techniques, to boost memory, perception, and overall well-being. In pioneering work, Dr. Sanguinetti teamed up with the prominent meditation teacher and scholar Shinzen Young to explore science-informed protocols and neurotechnologies to facilitate mindfulness practice. This collaboration gave birth to the Science Enhanced Mindful Awareness (SEMA) lab at the University of Arizona. The SEMA lab is at the forefront of developing science-based mindfulness protocols that lower the barriers to meditation and may help more people experience the benefits of the practice.
Jay Sanguinetti, Sanmai, University of Arizona
Novel Neural Stimulation Techniques, Enhancement of Meditative States
Dustin DiPerna is a Harvard-trained scholar of world religions. He currently serves as adjunct professor at Stanford University where he teaches classes on meditation, human flourishing, and purpose finding. Dustin is also Co-editor and Chief of the mental health company CredibleMind.
Dustin spent 20 years studying with Ken Wilber and is considered an expert in Integral Theory. He is a senior teacher of Tibetan meditation practices and studied with his main meditation teacher, Daniel P. Brown, for 16 years. Dustin and Dan co-taught Mahamudra and Dzogchen meditation retreats together for 10 years until Dan’s passing. Dustin teaches regularly in the US, Europe, Australia, and China.
Through his writing, teaching, and entrepreneurship, Dustin helps people find happier and more fulfilling ways of being in the world. His books include Streams of Wisdom, Evolution's Ally, and Earth is Eden. An avid lover of art, design, and nature, he lives in California with his wife, Amanda, and daughters, Jaya and Rumi.
Dustin DiPerna, Stanford
Accessible Spiritual Wisdom, Combining Ancient Practices with Neuroscience
Dr. Adam Gazzaley obtained an M.D. and Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, completed Neurology residency at the University of Pennsylvania, and postdoctoral training in cognitive neuroscience at University of California, Berkeley. He is currently the David Dolby Distinguished Professor of Neurology, Physiology and Psychiatry at University of California, San Francisco and the Founder & Executive Director of Neuroscape, a translational neuroscience center at UCSF engaged in technology creation and scientific research.
At Neuroscape, he leads the design and development of novel brain assessment and cognitive optimization technologies to advance education, wellness, and medicine practices. Neuroscape’s novel approach involves the development of custom-designed, closed-loop video games integrated with the latest advancements in software and hardware (virtual/augmented reality, motion capture, mobile physiological recording devices, transcranial electrical brain stimulation). These technologies are then advanced to rigorous, placebo-controlled research studies that evaluate their impact on cognition, as well as the neural mechanisms of these effects using a combination of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).Dr. Gazzaley has filed multiple patents for his inventions, authored over 180 scientific articles, and delivered over 700 invited presentations around the world. His research and perspectives have been consistently profiled in high-impact media, such as The New York Times, New York Times Magazine, New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, TIME, Discover, Wired, PBS, NPR, CNN and NBC Nightly News. He wrote and hosted the nationally-televised PBS special “The Distracted Mind with Dr. Adam Gazzaley”, and co-authored the 2016 MIT Press book “The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World”, winner of the 2017 PROSE Award in the category of Biomedicine and Neuroscience.Dr. Gazzaley has received many awards and honors, including the 2015 SfN Science Educator Award, the 2020 Global Gaming Citizen Honor and was named in Newsweek's 2021 Inaugural list of America’s Greatest Disruptors.
Adam Gazzaley, UCSF
Intersection of Technology and Mindfulness Research