Using VR to expand and heal your Brain, with Amir Bozorgzadeh

Step into the future of cognitive health with this enlightening episode of the Crackin Backs Podcast, featuring visionary Amir Bozorgzadeh, co-founder of Virtuleap. 

We sat down with this visionary to discuss the intersection of virtual reality (VR) and cognitive development.  Mr. Bozorgzadeh shares how Virtuleap's cutting-edge VR technology is not just playing games but revolutionizing cognitive training and therapy.
 
Discover how these immersive experiences go beyond traditional methods to enhance cognitive skills, offering a new horizon for healthcare, education, and overcoming personal challenges.

In this show you will learn about Virtuleap's ambitious plans to harness VR for medical training, potentially transforming how doctors are educated. Explore the science behind the scenes, including the use of machine learning to detect early signs of cognitive illnesses such as dementia and Alzheimer's, and find out how partnerships with prestigious organizations like the AARP are propelling forward research and application in this exciting field.

This episode is not just a peek into the future; it's a doorway to understanding how VR technology can reshape our approach to cognitive health and training, making it more effective, engaging, and accessible. Tune in to get inspired by the possibilities that Virtuleap and VR technology hold for changing lives and advancing healthcare.

We are two sports chiropractors, seeking knowledge from some of the best resources in the world of health. From our perspective, health is more than just “Crackin Backs” but a deep dive into physical, mental, and nutritional well-being philosophies.

Join us as we talk to some of the greatest minds and discover some of the most incredible gems you can use to maintain a higher level of health. Crackin Backs Podcast

Transcript

Dr. Spencer Baron: 0:00

Welcome back to the cracking backs podcast where we delve into the forefront of medical innovation and the minds shaping the future of healthcare. Today, we're venturing into the virtual realm with Amir the Zords, a day, co founder of virtual leap, a trailblazer in leveraging VR technology to enhance cognitive development, and tackle neurological disorders. Imagine a world where training your brain is as immersive and engaging as your favorite video game. And we're overcoming fears and building resilience is just a headset away. Join us as we explore how virtual leap is not just reimagining cognitive training, but revolutionising it, get ready to have your mind expanded.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 0:50

Well, based off of the pre show, I can't wait to talk to you. I'm here. And it's such an honor to have a guy of your caliber on our show, and especially coming from Spain. So we have an international guest and we're so excited to have you. Welcome to the show.

Unknown: 1:08

Thank you, Terry. Thank you, Spencer, based on the pre show I'm already explore the the neurological neuroscience, cognitive science metaphysical, together, it's

Dr. Terry Weyman: 1:21

gonna be great. Oh, I'll just jump right in. So let people know you're the CEO, co founder of a VR startup. And that's it's such a hot topic right now. And that's why we're so excited and and name your company is virtually which unlocks neuroscience with virtual reality. And I want I want to hear just from the get go, how did this concept start using your company's name, leap into VR, cognitive neuroscience and said and use it for cognitive neurosciences of just gaming.

Unknown: 1:57

I had, I had using had a very deep vertigo, you know, I was on a flight one time with my wife, and I'm literally on her lap. That's how much vertigo I have in terms of like heights and so on. And I had the opportunity around 2013, which was the latest depends who you talk to with the latest hype cycle or wave of VR, because VR is nothing new for a lot of people who've been paying attention since the 80s, really. But I tried an experience that use exposure therapy for fear of heights. And in one session, it had significantly done for me something that I thought was a prison cell that you just can't you have to accept is a part of you, I realized there's certain technologies that can defy space time, you know, physics, and make things happen in a way that had a profound liberation to my life. So I started writing about the technology for VentureBeat in TechCrunch. I tried to get in, become an expert of it. And in 2018, we launched the company based on that inspiration translated into four years of writing about it. And just trying to figure out where exactly this technology has a critical application because I only think VR and augmented reality mixed reality all the buzzwords they have for this but the only critical application is when it has an healthcare application or an education application. Every other form of these immersive experiences don't really interest me I'd rather be out in the beach or the forest. But these technologies have a superpower to help us get beyond certain restrictions and limitations.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 3:49

So Amir, I really we were practicing before we got on the air but I'm going to say your last name regardless of my fear of being on on the air, a mere bizarre exe a day. Did I do that? Or do you

Unknown: 4:06

have a talent? And I've heard I if you go to my Web Summit is a big event in Lisbon and you hear the host introduce me. He introduced letters that weren't there. It was amazing. If you ever anyone wants to go to youtube search Web Summit, my name and this guy, I forget who he is and if he's watching I mean, I've heard you know, the best one was Bozo Azadi.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 4:35

Oh yeah.

Unknown: 4:38

Those are those are those are different things. But no, no, that's well done. And if you have you have linguistic reliability. Oh, how you pronounced it before the Great.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 4:49

Thank you for those saying Lord Baron, you did a good job.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 4:58

Thank you Uh, oh my gosh, this is great. And so getting back to our original subject matter, I would like to elaborate for the audience, you know, virtual leaves technology specifically and how it contributes to this cognitive development and training, which is definitely something important, especially in a generation that suffered through COVID and not being in school. And then on the far end of the spectrum, us older folks that are deteriorating.

Unknown: 5:33

You're not alone. And I think you're you're drastically not alone. I think there's a, there's a race now and unconscious race to what I consider to be called the cognition crisis in that, and I think no one really is paying attention. I think people on the research side are studying things like tick tock brain. What is that? Well, by the time we find out because the research takes so long, it's already too late, where the quicksand has taken us, it's where these tick tock social media mechanisms have been widespread across every single social media platform where people I think, under their 20s can barely pay attention beyond a three minute real. Forget Netflix, that's two, I mean, 30 minute episodes, forget watching The English Patient for two plus hours, right? We're past those times. And I think the core of it is our attention abilities are distractibility is going high. And with distractibility, going high, our attention muscles going low, it has a deep correlation with depression and mental health disorders in inverse inverse directions. And so these technologies that, you know, may have been a luxury, let's say, five years ago, even now, I think you have to use the forefront of emerging technologies like virtual reality, to engage us in such a way so that we're aware of what's happening to ourselves, cognitively, in our cognitive landscape to see not just physical strength, but cognitive strength, and cognitive strength allows us to have an immune system against mental health disorders. So in a nutshell, that's what we're trying to do, we're using VR, a little bit of, you know, big data, because VR and big data are very, very synonymous in my, in my books, to help us counteract what is happening.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 7:21

Dr. Terry, I love this guy, I love this guy, he is going to introduce a different realm of, you know, working against what, what, what these young brains and even as sunrise old brains are dealing with. So let me ask you, the, you know, for those of you for those people that are listening, that don't even don't think that social media has had an effect on us, go to the movies, and look at how they now film trailers to movies, it's constantly changing scenery every second, whereas like 3040 years ago, you would you would see, you know, a scene that would last for, you know, several seconds, right? So we're getting fooled all over the place, and it's changing the way we think. I have a couple questions for you the how does the VR How is your approach going to remap our brain?

Unknown: 8:27

I think one thing, misunderstanding or just something we don't think about is that physicality is also cognitive, motor control skills, spatial orientation, spatial audio awareness, these are these are cognitive abilities. They're not just physical mind and body aren't such separate things that that ancient sage on the top of the hill, who said that 1000s of years ago when we see it in Disney films, it's true. And I think neuroscience, modern neuroscience keeps on getting closer to that, that we know that there's some activity in the gut that has a cognitive value. There's things in the heart that have cognitive value, there's things in the head, and they all correlate in virtual reality is an embodied digital format that engages my autonomic nervous system, my vestibular balance system, my proprioception, into believing that the experience is real, like when I go on, if I if I did a crime, and I get a lie detector test, there's some part of me nonverbal that tells the truth, well, what the hell is that there's aspects of us that nonverbal in a VR environment, and the only reason it's critical is how it engages those nonverbal circuitries how it engages on our experiential, or emotional sides, all in tandem, if it's well designed, and well tested and run by people who have scientific backgrounds who take time to account because you can always have a lot of missing the mark in even in any medium, but if you do it right, with VR, it can you can have an order of magnitude With greater impact in any particular aim, educational and health care,

Dr. Spencer Baron: 10:04

can you give me an example of what I would see in here that would actually have that help in changing. So,

Unknown: 10:13

you know, our first product flagship product is called enhance VR, it's actually free to download on all the app stores. It's, it's essentially a library of 15 cognitive exercises that span across 22 cognitive functions. So when you play these 15 games, you get a landscape of how you are strong and weak across these different areas, like, you know, episodic memory, or, like I said, motor control skills, all that that rage, one game will be based. And typically all the games will be translations of neurological assessment tools. They're translated from, you know, tools that have been used by the neuro neuroscience community for, let's say, decades, some of them like the N back task. And then you take that into VR, and you make it into a game where you're making pizza, or you're delivering orders, or another one where you're transporting a ship from ABCDE, navigational spots, or another one that is a representation of the of our favorite Whack a Mole kind of arcade sort of game. Each one of them is a specific design game, that is a collaboration between a neuroscientist on our team and a game designer that then brings it into virtual reality environments. The reason that engages all those things is because you're always using your limbs, you're always in a environment where you're balancing the movement between back and forth. And the exercise is not limited to just your thumbs and fingers typing on a screen. Right? If you pick up a glass of Pepsi the same way in VR, as you do in the real world, you're engaging and involving your psychomotor. At you know, the sideview

Dr. Spencer Baron: 11:53

mirror, you said something about that? I heard you mentioned an audio component. Now we're all talking visual right now what and maybe kinesthetic, or, or spatial stuff. What about audio?

Unknown: 12:06

The thing about audio is we even have some games? Well, one is specifically that is a spatial audio game where the robot basically disappears into invisible, invisible kind of environment and moves around and then it makes noises and then you have to basically located based on the location, so even have split spatial audio oriented games, but but, you know, one aspect of it is we had someone very early working on essentially not binaural beats, but a type of phase locking music that even is playing in the background. There's, you know, nature publications on on Apple, I think, and I'm very a big believer on music, being something that can add to the experience. But really, it's a lot of things, we try to use it as an input. That is the, you know, the the base of the basis of even some game mechanisms.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 12:58

Oh my gosh, I love it, you actually just reminded me there's there was a phenomenon that was done research done called the Mozart effect that would help with spatial temporal reasoning. And, you know, I just imagined it when you said music, that's the first thing I thought up, there's some there's some research on it was some somewhat disputable and error, error reproducible. But they found that you, if I think two pianos and D minor concerto, whatever. And they they said that if that it could actually improve spatial temporal reasoning by an IQ of eight to eight to nine points or something like that it was. So man, you're, you're you're on track, that would be pretty cool to add.

Unknown: 13:47

It's really about like, what makes the human condition interact with its environment, in going whatever medium we want to use, let's try to engage every single aspect of them at the same time in tandem, not surgically remove the whole thing. Don't make it you know, I think it's hard for people to believe that the screened devices in our in our in our pockets are not going to last forever. But that's really, really silly. You know, it's a matter of time. And it's a very, it's what I consider an intermediary technology. It's not intuitive to the human UX, the native UX. Here's your real funny example. And I you know, I wrote about it, and I covered it in lots of ways in the in the media, where people thought older people, let's say people in nursing homes or senior living communities just don't like VR. They won't like it because, you know, they're Luddites, of course they don't like it was the exact opposite. They were the they're the earliest adopters of virtual reality across hundreds and hundreds of communities in the US particularly it's a tough place, but also Europe, Asia, but in the US is one of the top stickiest applications of the Er, and if we had done more to stop saying like, what is it projecting that? Oh, no, they were like, we know what they want. No, no, no, no, no, I did. I did a pilot in Kyoto, Japan with people in their 90s. And they it had a quality of life difference. We did it. We did an NIH SBIR grant study in the US that just finished a few months ago, with a company called Map have a great team, very much focused on a population of people with Alzheimer's. And again, positive effect and quality of life, even when there's problems with interacting or completing or anything like that. Still, we just, you know, any population where they say, It doesn't work that way, I just, I think every 50 years, we realize what's how stupid we are, you know, and

Dr. Terry Weyman: 15:48

100%. I got a quick layman's question. You see the VCRs. When they first get started coming out with different games, I'm talking about the headset is a headset as important because now the medic one, they come out with a new headset that was more advanced. Is it the headset that? Can your games work with any headset? Is the headset critical? Or is it more of the programming that's going through the headset is more critical.

Unknown: 16:19

Now, the quest three, this latest device, what's really awesome about it is that it's much lighter. Okay, aside from better visuals, better resolution, it keeps on removing any issues, even if you're the most horrible VR developer in the world, the ones I hate to even, you know, rub shoulders with. And I see that they don't care about things that you know, just best practices, we work with hospitals, we go back and forth, and testing making sure we do not have discomfort, we maximize accessibility, we make sure it doesn't have colorblind settings as I have, you know, all these things are important, especially for us as a healthcare sort of VR company. But you know, the more you get advanced on it, the less you can even cause nausea, because you're getting better and better at resolution you're doing all these things of the headsets can protect even horrible developers from from screwing up the experience, but this device is way lighter. So you know, I don't want people in VR headsets for longer than 20 minutes, I make experiences of less than 15 minutes, ideally 10 minutes, get the hell back in the real world. You know, don't make I don't want you to make friends in VR. Like if you have issues with making friends in the real world, VR can help you with that, you know, get back into the real world engage with the you know, the actual fragrances don't make digital fragrances No, like, I'm not that guy. And I'm not even though you guys are really cool. And you're like me. I am not popular in my industry. Because I am not all over the place. Let's go and socialize in VR. Let's go to the bar in VR. What the hell are you guys talking about? But this quest three better resolution better? Everything goes hand in hand gesture can now be the main mode. Forget the controllers that is now here. And of course, I think it's like 30% at least lighter. But to answer your other question, we have to we design using a game engine called Unity. Unity is supported by all the headsets, we try to be agnostic and support any of the major ones. If it's not major, like really well used and asked for we try to avoid it because it's just extra work. The Apple headset that just came out, it's it's a very big moment. We're working to create a new version for theirs. But we support Currently we support all the major headsets.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 18:33

So cool. By the way, a mirror I like you because my second son is a totos minor cyber security guy so so I get you get.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 18:44

Yeah, yeah. And I appreciate that. Because my son has a VR set. And we were for we're climbing a mountain one time and I'm a big outdoor mountain climber. And I said, I want to come out here I want to get outside. So I appreciate I appreciate what you just said using it for what it's good for. Alright, so I have a question and overcoming fear. It involves a exposure to stressors and the fear object or situation and managing that stress response to the way that leads to resilience, right? So the process can simulate production, as we know neuro chemicals like dopamine and norepinephrine, which are associated with reward of alertness, right? So the problem is a lot of people after a certain age when you go okay, we're going to we're going to try and open up some pathways in your brain by exposing you to fear and, you know, like, even even the movie or the show on Netflix limitless where they had Hemsworth walking on the plank or walking in a height well a lot of people can't do that. They don't have the money. They don't have the the ways of getting it. In my head. I'm like, what can't we use VR in an office setting to simulate the exact same thing and get those results I feel is one of the goals is company to be able to bring fearful situations into a controlled environment. Sit

Unknown: 20:11

you know, it's like the going up the pyramid of the the lower kinds of cognitive training we can do. One aspect of not answering your question yet but one aspect of what I've noticed with with cognitive landscapes in people is that their weaknesses, they try to avoid them. We try a society we think we like to develop our weaknesses. But I my experience is a complete opposite. We like to, for example, you you, you're good at something like let's say you're playing some sport, then other people get better, you become less better. I've noticed in my experience that people get less interested in something, the less they are superior in it or have some kind of character over development in it. When I used to play FIFA with my friends in college. My friend would love playing it when he kicked our butts. But then when I started getting better as the people got better, he would move on to something else. In our games, I noticed that people we have like 15 games that people avoid, I avoid assists, even me, the games that relate to my lowest scores in my cognitive because when you see your cognitive scores, it paints a picture of you in like a radar chart, you see where your chicken legs are in the gym, speaking and you hate looking at your chicken legs. So in the VR, I've noticed that you avoid what you're good or bad at and you try to accentuate and overdevelopment. Tiger Woods style, let's become like over character doesn't matter in personal life. He's a complete disaster. No, no, no, he's amazing at this one damn thing. So I'm going to develop my one damn thing. And I'm going to become successful because of that. We don't want wholesomeness we pretend we do, we don't want self development, we just want success in a particular like superpower. And it's a really bad way. It's not it's not conducive to mental health, in my opinion. And it relates to fear, I think, partially in some of these domains, because it reminds people of their weaknesses. In other areas, we're talking about more thresholds of, let's say, jumping into very unknown circumstances. And then that causes like, let's say, you're, you're operating with muscles that you just don't have, you don't have memory banks with records of this experience. And so it's the unknown. So it kind of, you know, it's like the pyramid to me, you, you start building and knowing more about your weakness areas, but then you keep on going higher. And then there's the real places the good stuff, the sweet spots of real unknown territory, where that those kinds of chemicals start to jump in. Where you would never take yourself by yourself, you would need to be dared, or in the setting of VR safe and home. Maybe there's there's ways to do that. Because VR is a safe way to treat someone's phobia of people Agra phobia. I don't want to be in a place with too many people. But in VR, I can go into a simulation and start an empty room and bring it to level one. There's two people there, okay, I'm okay with this. I'm on level three. Okay, well, there's more people in level five, keep on exposure therapy safe in your control. The thing about I think a lot of these fear mechanisms is that it's also based on our, our, our, our clinging to control.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 23:25

A mirror my, I love the idea of utilizing VR to overcome phobias and it in a controlled and safe environment. And it's fascinating. My my, my girl is has a massive fear of spiders. Like she would rather burn in a fire or something, you know, then see a spider anywhere, even even a picture. So how would that? How would you approach an environment like that or a situation like that?

Unknown: 23:56

So I wrote an article exactly about 111 gentleman who made a spider VR simulation. And so it starts off and he made it within two hours, by the way, and then because why did He create it because he wanted to get rid of his own fear of spiders. Can't remember his name right off the top of my head, but he's a very big, big person. Now at Y Combinator, that big startup accelerator. He runs when other VC funds but I covered his early early idea where he after two hours of using his own created solution for overcoming his fear of spiders. He got a tarantula and put on his Whoa, now that sounds like hype, but I'm telling you, I believe the guy he was honest. I think he said the truth. And how do you do it? You start off with a pixel, you know, level one is this the pixel moving by can handle a pixel. Then you got like, you know, three, four pixels. It's trying to turn into something that looks like a creature I can handle this weird, digitize whatever this hell is this thing is See, and then love will keep on to oh, now it's getting old, you know, get all the way to the firm, you know, and moving. I mean, it's just it's just about control, safety and modulation and leveling up and dealing with it and no BS in your head telling you I'm, you know, like, just like fear of heights. That is we just have to learn how to use our neuroplasticity in our favor with the help of these cool technologies. Karen,

Dr. Terry Weyman: 25:29

I see I see a birthday present coming your way.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 25:36

Karen either Karen either. Me or what is time banking ghoul?

Unknown: 25:44

Well, you know, this is probably 15 or so years ago, I think 2010 2011. So maybe it was I was living in Dubai. I'm a Canadian. I grew up in Canada. But I spent I spent a stint of time in Dubai. A very, very crazy period where I met a lot of people from all around the world and I that at that time, TED lecture, you know, Ted lectures were before TEDx. Really, I think TEDx was the death of Ted. But um, Ted was like, you know, anthropologist comes, goes 20 years in the forest, and then comes back and gives you a 20 minute distillation of it, you're like, wow, you know, now they're like, they learned something at a coffee break, and they bring it up in TEDx. But I participated in one of these these events, and I met some really cool people, we went what are the challenges of a place like Dubai, social cohesion is one and I had been studying a system platform that had been popularized in the UK, US and UK, where people would share they would share each other's talents in exchange for a communal token currency of time called time banking or time in Dubai time. Durham's so one hour of me helping you or your kid teaching them guitar, because I'm gonna guitar earns me and the time bank, one time dollar that I can have someone perhaps helped me with another issue. So it was about community cohesion, and social cohesion and, and social fabric in a place like Dubai.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 27:21

Wow, fascinating. Fascinating. Okay, moving off of that back to like that multi sensory experience, but so spatial orientation, motor skills, things like that, how does this VR immersive experience? What is that so different about that than just, you know, to D computer screen based apps.

Unknown: 27:49

You know, when you get the scores that you get, when you get to actually play the 15 games, we have this new report that's coming out where you get a report that gives you your strengths and weaknesses across those 22 categories, and then tells you how that relates to maybe, you know, let's say job profiles that were more suited for or, or areas matters, you know, that you might in life, daily life activities, remember your grocery list, you know, like things in life, what did these relate to and can giving you kind of an understanding of your cognitive fingerprint. Now that cognitive fingerprint to me is not complete, unless it does include within our scoring spatialized physical motor skills as part of that scoring, it doesn't just, you know, in the 2d world, you only have the traditional cognitive categories memory, information processing, problem solving, great. But I don't think that's the full puzzle, I don't think that's even our stuff is not the full puzzle, because we have to go into areas that are qualitative, emotional, those kinds of things were very much more like the gym, for the mind will go very mechanical and quantitative, you have your memory workouts here in this space, you got your physical workouts on that space, but there's a universal scoring system that takes all of your activities and gives you more or less an IQ score that we call the enhanced performance index. So I suppose it's all about what is more whole, what is the more wholesome and and how do we keep on using technologies and methods for understanding ourselves that encapsulate capsulate more of us? I would say, it's like two dimensions of understanding versus three dimensions of understanding and maybe one day we'll, we'll even, you know, talk about other areas, but it's, you know, is it the full picture or not? Is it less of the full picture? What are we missing out? I think VR is just more full. I think on the engagement side, we're talking about in every it's about 6000. Worldwide studies always showing that that retention, adherence, all these things are always boosted because the novelty is higher because it's engaging more of us. So, more wholesome capture. more engagement.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 30:02

Thank you for that that answer. Um, so you're, you provide a grading system so the layperson can actually get feedback on their performance Correct. Is their application in a? I mean, being the Secretary and I are doctors? I mean, you know, we see patients all the time, is there an application that we would be able to use in the office for, you know, we, we deal with a lot of athletes, so you can launch from there is that there'll be application in that perspective? Well, we

Unknown: 30:40

found with one early study last year that we have a therapeutic benefit when it came to university students with ADHD, we believe there's a therapeutic effect when you have a cognitive deficit. But for a general healthy individual, it's more of a tracking tool, you know, you get to see this report. And you get to understand that when I, you know, drank too many drinks last night, and maybe my scores today went dropped by a significant amount, maybe a surgery, the surgeon going into, you know, the, into an operating room, so maybe play the games and see if he's operating perfectly at norms before they go in. That's enhance VR, that's our main tool. You know, it's kind of like touching base with Am I at my norms, that's for the general population, whereas for ADHD for Tiktok, brain for for people who had traumatic brain injury or recuperating people who are had a concussion, people who do chemotherapy, 70% have brain fog. I had COVID. Again, last month, and I for the first time I had long COVID. I couldn't remember my house number. I'm sorry, ma'am. You know, so cognitive disorders, conditions where you have a deficit, this can be a therapeutic, I really, really wholeheartedly believe. The second thing is we have a second tool that we were co developed been co developing with Roche, the pharma company, where it's a screening tool for mild cognitive impairment and perhaps even subjective cognitive decline. But that's very much more for clinics for neurologists. And we're going to be releasing that by probably this summer of this year as a second.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 32:11

Oh, so you could use it for testing audition? No, yes, that's okay. Very

Unknown: 32:16

much more in the medical setting clinic setting. Whereas enhanced VR can be used therapeutically, or by the general life

Dr. Terry Weyman: 32:23

so I'm already seeing a use for for the, when somebody gets hurt the the fear of the RE injury or the change of patterns, use like for ACLs or for hips or something like that. joint replacements, you could use this to restore that, that that cognitive connection, can't you?

Unknown: 32:45

It's It's, um, we worked with St. Joseph's University, and Rutgers on on some preliminary applications and, you know, rehabilitation and in the area of sports, we work with VA Health Care System in San Francisco, but their addiction alcohol addiction group where even alcohol addiction PTSD, these things can cause it, can we use it as a recuperative for rehabilitation from stroke rehabilitation for any type of physical injury, a significant one, I wholeheartedly believe there's always a cognitive parallel to it. If we're injured physically, there's a cognitive relationship to that, and and vice vice versa. In other weird ways, I think that's what we really have to think is that cognition is always not something we should take for granted. And I think we do take it for granted at our peril as a society. And if I could think what do people think about 150 years from now I hope to Gosh, that that is one of knowing body and mind are always related. And if there is something to recuperate in any dimension of us cognition should be part of the package.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 33:59

A mirror take illnesses like dementia and Alzheimer's would you be able to detect early onset? And the second part of that question is would you would would VR be able to help with rehab or therapeutic benefits? Now

Unknown: 34:20

that the Alzheimer's is such a riddle? It's a it's a question of what's before Alzheimer's and what's before even that, and so that's when we say when you have mild or you've been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment, you don't have Alzheimer's, but you have MCI, that's not a good thing. It's not something you can just veer away from when you have MCI. So what is pre MCI what's before mild cognitive impairment? So we say subjective cognitive decline, you start joking with your friends, I can't remember this as well, as usual or whatever. You know, in Japan, it's funny, anyone who's employed more or less 80% of population, they do cognitive screeners every year. It's just part of their society. We don't do nothing And Canada stuff, it's just like you know, next we should be we end because we do nothing we make making to a taboo I am, I do not want to go in an MRI machine. That's how we see it, we see what the fright, the same fear as I did a rack Noid you know, and it keeps us from ever frickin checking out our call, you know, like, like, we have gyms everywhere glorifying the physical body, we just need like a little bit of stuff that we can screen and monitor and measure our cognitive side. So I think outsiders the solution, so not so much is treating it as it is when it happens. God forbid anyone has this horrible illness. And there's plenty of pharmacological kind of initiatives to treat that. I think we're more about longevity. We're more about creating this philosophy of of giving a crap about your cognitive state and understanding yourself. And maybe we can spot it as it's starting to happen in the most subtle ways, because VR captures in the exact same way in order of magnitude more data than any other solution, we capture about 250,000 data points every three minutes. That is a combination of the cognitive data from the games and the physical postural data gesticulation of the arms data, we're collecting all of it potentially. And like there's, there's a there's an Alzheimer's biomarker that I read in a paper, I think six months ago, where they could detect it as a biomarker, your likeliness for Alzheimer's based on your postural alignment of your spine. We even have physiological sensors built into some of the headsets. MIT did a study last August with us now to August's ago with us, where they took physiological sensors like pupil dilation, tracking and heart rate variability. And we have an AI learning algorithm that that knows your cognitive load in real time. So it knows if you're focused or not. So you got three dimensions physiological, psychological, physical, postural, gesticulation, all of this in one system, the data, I believe, is where the predictive powers will be. Sorry for

Dr. Terry Weyman: 37:07

looking brilliant. Oh, please. You guys, do you get me excited. Baron is on fire. Hey. Baron is on fire. That's like a slow copy right now.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 37:28

Amir, I actually have a suggestion that may solve a lot of your challenges when approaching companies or people with the interest in identifying Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, dementia and all that. What I noticed, I worked for the Miami Dolphins for many years as their chiropractor and I took 15 months of mild traumatic brain injury course. And what I was so excited and equipped with to identify my patients current and former NFL players with the potential for concussion and how we could so I my, my conversation was always, hey, let me find out if your concussions have had an effect on you. They didn't want to know. They didn't want to know, right? So obvious. Yeah. All right. So I completely changed my conversation. And I got 100% compliance when I said, Hey, let's strengthen your brain and find out like, you know, when we test your muscles of the shoulder, and we find out your rotator and one of your rotator cuff muscles are weak, let's strengthen it. I could find out some areas of the brain that we can strengthen. Suddenly, everybody's like, Okay, let's do it.

Unknown: 38:39

Right. That's a key point.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 38:48

Sorry, I'm here. You're killing me for the rest of the year. I'm sorry.

Unknown: 38:57

Isn't Isn't that so? Psychologically? Important? Right. And I think it's a it's an it's too bad. That's the case. We have to It's like Mary Poppins. We gotta put some sugar in that medicine. till we get the medicine down, right. We gotta go. We gotta go. How can can we trick a person to eat that frickin apple instead of the Snickers bar? Right. We gotta wrap it. We have to wrap the apple up and snickers packaging. Yeah, you're right. That was a

Dr. Spencer Baron: 39:26

great, that's great. I understand your organization that virtually works with the organizations like hey, AARP, the for those who aren't of the age American Association of Retired Persons. They've been hitting me up since I was 40. And I keep that here is and Pacific Brain Health Center. I believe these collaborations were where would you be at with them and some of the research and development efforts.

Unknown: 39:57

Now we always work with my wife. favorite people in the world are researchers, healthcare oriented researchers like working with institutes here in Europe as well in the US for therapeutic areas like ADHD or autism or, you know, TBI. In cases like AARP, we actually collaborated in putting our games in one of their applications that they had a VR application catering to their members. And so we participated by putting up a version of our software in that world. So it was more of a commercial relationship. If anyone from AARP is is listening, we should be doing research side. But you know, there's such a big organization, I don't know what they're up to, you know, sometimes the bigger the organization, the harder you can navigate, for example, some pharma companies there, some people are they do VR, but they don't even know each other in the same organization, you know? So we work with some of these big ones, but my favorites are are just small academic, institutional teams, where they want to do research and we collaborate with them. As a technology provider, we typically go out and apply for grants, public grants, and then and then do some, do some rock and roll some research.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 41:14

Wow, that's great. What about working with post traumatic PTSD patients,

Unknown: 41:21

there's that there's a person I need to introduce you to to. He's our scientific adviser and the coolest dude in the in the universe. As far as I'm concerned, his name is Albert, skip Rizzo. So we call him skip. He has been doing a VR for healthcare applications like PTSD, which is one of his big areas. He's in LA. And for since the since the 90s, he has been doing these applications and PTSD relates to potential projects we would do with the Navy SEALs that we're currently trialing the solution with, again, VA Healthcare System, the biggest healthcare system, as far as I know, in the world, you know, Central is PTSD and its relationship to bad lifestyle factors that in turn, cause a really high risk factor towards cognitive impairment and cognitive deterioration. So PTSD is one of those one of those big things, it's like the foundation for really bad things to happen if you don't start treating it. Whether it's using VR solutions to you know, reproduce those environments, which Skipp has been involved in, create, like, recreate the environment at the peak that trauma initially happened in VR, and then make it so matching that environment that that person can re enter that world and then control get their control back. Right. So that's, that's, that's the way VR is being used. And that's actually quite not very recent, but continuously re evolved. And I think breaking bringing skip on your show will be a hell of a ride for

Dr. Terry Weyman: 42:57

you. It's almost like what they're using psychedelics for the trying to get to the use of psychedelic see you. You see the trauma, but you have no association with the trauma. So now you're using VR for almost the same type of thing. Is that Is that am I hearing that correctly? or No?

Unknown: 43:12

Absolutely, you're you're so right. Psychedelics is it's a it's such a Pandora's box, I think, in terms of some people that I've met have used it in such a perfect way other people can, can can can use it in and I think it's a double edged sword whatever is effective in this way is always a double edged sword. I think VR can create a trauma it's just as bad as it can cure one as well. You know that there's a TV show I watched called App altered carbon where they use VR, the torture device, you know, so like, you know, you want to you want to cure your fear of spiders will I can create one you know, you're not afraid of spiders will just give me some time. You know, you know, jump into the matrix. I'll give you the fear of Yeah.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 43:59

What about SCI? Have you ever done anything with spinal cord injuries where you can help with them? Or is that is you know, we've had some guests that have done amazing things told I'll never walk again and they create new pathways. Can VR help us something like that? Have you ever seen anything?

Unknown: 44:19

It's so much about in the beginning, we were started out we have about 16 people right now. You know two years ago let's say we're just five people it's an Oliver Twist or you go out and you go hey, please researcher who would you be would you like to partner you know you try to because they have so many other opportunities thing to do we just haven't had a chance to even touch upon some stuff that that therapeutic area it's more about the stars aligning it really is serendipity me messaging people from because of their their emails are provided on their on their publications, peer reviewed publications, and then boom, the stars align because I reached out. It's really, no we haven't but what Have a met amazing area to apply to I have so much enthusiasm about about that kind, what you're talking about is that the it's not just a related arrow that goes from physicality to cognitive. It's the also the opposite way. And I think we should use these tools in that way too, but not our tool by itself. It's on us in combination with things. Sometimes we can pair up with traditional treatments or other experimental treatments that are more, let's say, have more evidence to have an effect for those types of areas. But we can serve as a piggy back and and that data side of things we can we can substantiate the evolution of the you know, the, the rehabilitation of that individual.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 45:49

You mentioned earlier about tick tock brain. You could briefly Can you briefly explain to our audience Tiktok brain, but my more importantly, my question has to do with the evolution of dealing with the results and how, you know, VR can can transition you back to a normal brain or whatever.

Unknown: 46:16

Well, yeah, I mean, is there such a thing, pre checked off brain? Or, you know, I, it all comes down to our sustained attention skills, can we focus on one thing? And when an associative thought appears in our head? Do we just run after that? That little rabbit that just appeared in our head? You know, I'm focusing on a problem. I need 10 minutes to focus on this problem? Will I be able to focus beyond 30 seconds is the question. Well, if 10 years ago, were people able to generally speaking in a very, you know, specific task, can they focus on one thing and keep their attention oriented to that and not be vulnerable to any passing distraction to take their all their attention? You know, multitasking, from my point of view, is glorified in lots of ways. I think it can be good, but in general, what, what I consider most precious cognitively speaking, that at the center of our mental health is our ability to focus and concentrate firmly, and what these very clever mechanisms. I don't want to bring up the word China here. But I from what I understand how tick tock is deployed in China is not how its deployed in the US. And you know, the lawmakers are talking about data privacy and stuff, I would call this damn thing of a cognitive virus. Because they don't deploy it in the same way. They have different safeguards with how they use it. But I won't go into that conspiracy world. But this thing that got popularized, it's so addictive, because it's all about funny, short spikes of engagement based on silliness often, right, based on very superficial silliness, at 30 seconds, a pop, maybe less, and just using one little gesture, to pop up a new thing pop up a new thing, am I not engaged enough, but you're not making me laugh? Am I not like, is it not silly enough, boom, boom, and it trains your neural plasticity in such a way that it deteriorates your ability to sustain your attention skills, it's it. It's a subversion, it is something that has now been spread along every social media mechanism, because it's so effective in getting people to pay attention to small things and take your eye attention, take your take your engagement take your attention very easily. And as a society, I believe we are really deteriorating our attention skills, and that is going to cause huge spikes of depression. I believe in the next five years, it won't be a question of who has ADHD it will be who doesn't?

Dr. Spencer Baron: 49:05

My close friend, Dr. Mike McNeil, he is a functional functional neurologist. He's a chiropractor with a extra set of postgraduate certifications in functional neurology, which is absolutely fascinating. And what he shared during a lecture not a couple of years ago was that the saccadic movements where your eyes go up, stimulates an area of a brain differently than side to side and downward movements. So they really got you going to elicit dopamine responses and things like that, not just from what's coming up visually and the content, but also the physical pattern of going upwards. So

Unknown: 49:52

yes, they got us. I was I was really I was injured, not that long ago and I was kind of recovering a I'm in bed a little bit longer than I would ever want to and a little bit of depressed because I can't do my usual routines right, go out and get some fresh air. And I started for the first time doing way more swiping than I usually do. And man the only reason I'm so I sound so charged about this and a little bit of aggravated is because I you know, what was that commercials for Rogaine? It's like, I'm not just the president. I'm also the top user. I am I've seen my attention skills, my sustained it's actually skills draw from this thing the bastards got taught me being patronizing and condescending and other people. It's like, let's get the hell out of this shithole of a situation we've gotten ourselves in. We got to start using technology to dig ourselves out.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 50:47

Yeah, yeah. You know, it, whether we realize it or not, and this is not a conspiracy. This is actual truth. lobbyists for some of the drug companies that provide for the ADHD medications like Adderall and such, suddenly came up with a reason why everyone should take Adderall. You know, if you have an ad add or have trouble focusing? Well, you know, we got it on both ends from the pharmaceutical companies to government and now, you know, China or whatever. tiktoks.

Unknown: 51:23

That's scary. That's really that's really dystopia. That's dystopia. Harper's, yeah,

Dr. Spencer Baron: 51:28

they've changed the parameters on what you how to prove the prescribing habits for ADHD. So if you've got a friend that just goes, Oh, my gosh, shiny shiny objects, you know, I can't folk Oh, well, you need it, you know, Adderall or something like that. And not to mention that the creator of Adderall even came up with the term the name Adderall ad for all a DD attention deficit disorder for all Adderall.

Unknown: 52:01

I just got, you know, you just gave me some goosebumps. Yeah. So you know, it sounds like a Netflix special about seven years, we'll be showing about how that went wrong. And we have to like, watch it first happen before we can, you know, so

Dr. Spencer Baron: 52:16

what you are, is extremely Hey,

Dr. Terry Weyman: 52:20

Amira, just on that note where he just said, what's, what's your vision? What's your solution?

Unknown: 52:28

I think, you know, this isn't these kinds of solutions aren't the the final outcome, they're hopefully a tool that will make people more conscious about things that they're not conscious of, I think ignorance is often, you know, not seeing something is half the battle. And when you're conscious of something you have, you know, there's certain processes that can only happen in the absence of light chemical processes in the world of biology and chemistry, it's the same thing psychologically, the more we're aware of, the less things can happen in the darkness, because of us, just not being aware of them. And I think that this kind of technology will add that I hope schools and organizations use technologies like ours as a gym for the mind, and they think about what is their chicken legs, cognitively speaking, and they try to understand those areas and how it affects the way they are the way they are, why they're good, or the things that they're good at. And maybe, maybe maybe maybe people will start working on those chicken legs and becoming more wholesome. Rather than trying to over develop their strengths constantly. As a society, we try to just become, you know, more developed in our in our weaker spots.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 53:37

That's fantastic. That's fantastic. All right. We are entering one of our favorite times, we're coming into the end of our supercharged discussion, but with we want to do our traditional rapid fire questions with you that have maybe nothing to do with what the original show is about, but it's about you, Amir, so if you're ready, with some brief answers to questions about you, let me know give me the thumbs up you're ready. All right, my man. Rapid Fire question number one, your favorite game that you use to relax the hell do you realize that's the first time he's delayed answering badly relax. Is there such a thing? Oh,

Unknown: 54:35

okay. Well, you know, I used to play the game where you make all the dots and then you would connect them together on a on a paper that was fairly

Dr. Terry Weyman: 54:49

relaxed. What's it like being married, man?

Unknown: 54:57

It's not good. It's chill Shambala. Oh, x. So, you know, if you don't take a

Dr. Spencer Baron: 55:06

course question number two, best tip define the creativity that allows you to create new concepts.

Unknown: 55:16

I love I love spider webs. You know, the connecting, not spider webs in that way like, oh, okay, memory memory map like idea webs. What are they called? Gosh, I can't remember right now. It's at that time of the hour, where basically, whenever I want to connect the dots of things in my head, I put in an idea. And then I associate what did that connected to? What does that connected to? What does that connected to it? Kind of a diagrammatic mind maps. That's what it's not a spider web. It was the spider arachnoid thing we talked about. But it looks like

Dr. Spencer Baron: 55:51

mind maps are great. That's great. All right, question number three. If you could go back in time and meet one person, who would it be and why?

Unknown: 56:02

So I have a real geek about this earlier Russian philosopher mathematician called Pete Peter, it was spent ski. I still love ideas about the fourth dimension and higher mathematics. I know that sounds silly. But I would love he I've been studying from 20 years. And I would love to go see my, you know, intellectually.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 56:23

That's cool. That's great. That's great. Question number four. Where do you see the use of VR? In five years from now?

Unknown: 56:33

I really do think that we will have a virtual reality that is created spontaneously once AI gets running properly. Being able to tailor experiences to you know, overcome anything you want. I think you can just figuratively ask for it like the way chat GBT just answers you with text. I think in VR, you'll be able to say something and it can spontaneously create in VR, that situation. So I have a presentation to do to 1000 people, boom, go create an environment give me 1000 People boom created right in front of you going standing up there and rehearsing in a stage like that. I think it's, it's gonna be a genie out of the lamp. That will be fantastic for all of us.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 57:21

That just got me fired up. Okay. Last question. Favorite place in Spain that everyone should see. In reality?

Unknown: 57:33

Oh, yeah, I'll, I might be a stalker to anyone who tries to create a virtual Spain I O and make their life hell. So my family is from my wife's side is is in Majorca. It's this gorgeous island just in the Mediterranean Sea. It is a place full of like the most diverse towns and the most beautiful beaches, the best of which you have to walk like 1520 minutes off the beaten track to get to. I think it is definitely worth everyone's bucket list.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 58:10

Beautiful. Amira, thank you so much. To wrap it up. I want to give you an opportunity to mention anything that you would like the floor is yours if there's something you want to close with and make some suggestions to inspire people.

Unknown: 58:24

Go for it. Yeah, you know, VR, and AR these technologies, they're not Boogeyman. They have special abilities. There's people in the sector like me who don't believe in using them all the time. There's really cool applications. I know everyone will find them sooner or later. I'm not really looking for anything. For myself. If you're interested in connecting LinkedIn, I'm a power user for I think over 20 years on that thing. So I will I will add you and and if you have any questions, I can answer it. And my favorite thing is if you're a researcher who wants to just do research with us, I just want to hang out with researchers all the time. They helped me detox from talking to too many investors. So that's my relaxing thing hanging out with academics.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 59:13

A mirror Bazargan is a day you were fantastic, Lord.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 59:20

Always a pleasure to chat with you. But I so appreciate your time. Oh, Lord yet I'm a scribe. Thank you, Amir. With all my heart. You were amazing. So thank you for the advice. Everything you've done.

Unknown: 59:37

Thank you for the interest in having me on board. You are I won't tell any other podcasts I was but you're my favorite.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 59:44

Yeah, man. Thanks. And we'll look forward to having your your scientist on the

Unknown: 59:52

Yes Albert skip reso you're gonna skip door him it's gonna be epic. But maybe you want to do other things non VR and then jump back to VR. It's ready whenever you want to You had me at hello

Dr. Terry Weyman: 1:00:05

thank you thank you

Unknown: 1:00:07

that laugh is contagious

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:00:09

yeah