Every interaction with technology quietly rewires your brain and ultimately how our neural resources adapt to support our behavior and performance - and right now, that process is accelerating faster than most realize. We're in the middle of an inflection point with both great opportunities and critical blind spots: technologies are becoming more immersive to our senses, closed-loop in how they adapt to our physiological and mental states, and rapidly replacing or augmenting the past cognitive and behavioral demands we've needed for centuries. From headphones to AI agents, video games to immersive media, wearables and sensing systems to athletic performance tools or virtuosic skill trainers; we are designing technology that is ubiquitous in our lives and at the same time deeply influencing how our sensory, neural, and cognitive systems are shaped. The systems we are building aren't just products. They're neural architects. So how do you design for that? How do you intentionally architect brain change through the technology we build and simultaneously understand the neural and behavioral implications of the technology we are using? This course is a multi-pronged approach to those questions with an emphasis on sound and sensory experiences. We'll consider the neural plasticity implications of AI and specific modern technologies. With an emphasis on sound, music, and sensory systems, we will explore how we can proactively apply a "neural-change first" approach to how we build and design the innovations that we use in our daily lives and confront the tradeoffs: some technologies make us faster but quietly erode core cognitive skills, while others genuinely augment how we think, learn, and perform. The same neural mechanisms that transform a violinist's brain after hundreds of hours of practice can be activated when users engage deeply with targeted software or hardware. How can that process be engineered and accelerated?You'll build toward answering that. This course covers fundamentals of psychophysics and sensory neuroscience (auditory, visual, motor) and cognitive learning, as well as key technology development considerations for relevant technologies. The course will go through case studies of sound and other sensory-rich consumer technology development breaking down the neural impact of current and past multimodal technology groups and understand the implications for how their function interacts with their user's neural systems. Focus will be on a group seminar and select projects to understand the: neural, cognitive, and behavioral implications of specific technology function. For the main project: you'll design and prototype a multi-sensory technology of your choosing with explicit, science-backed neuroplasticity goals for the behavioral and neural changes you intend to produce. Hardware provided as needed. Right now the technologies and tools we use in our daily lives are changing. Let's be our own architects for what it means for our brains.
3-5 units · Letter or Credit/No Credit
Every interaction with technology quietly rewires your brain and ultimately how our neural resources adapt to support our behavior and performance - and right now, that process is accelerating faster than most realize. We're in the middle of an inflection point with both great opportunities and critical blind spots: technologies are becoming more immersive to our senses, closed-loop in how they adapt to our physiological and mental states, and rapidly replacing or augmenting the past cognitive and behavioral demands we've needed for centuries. From headphones to AI agents, video games to immersive media, wearables and sensing systems to athletic performance tools or virtuosic skill trainers; we are designing technology that is ubiquitous in our lives and at the same time deeply influencing how our sensory, neural, and cognitive systems are shaped. The systems we are building aren't just products. They're neural architects. So how do you design for that? How do you intentionally architect brain change through the technology we build and simultaneously understand the neural and behavioral implications of the technology we are using? This course is a multi-pronged approach to those questions with an emphasis on sound and sensory experiences. We'll consider the neural plasticity implications of AI and specific modern technologies. With an emphasis on sound, music, and sensory systems, we will explore how we can proactively apply a "neural-change first" approach to how we build and design the innovations that we use in our daily lives and confront the tradeoffs: some technologies make us faster but quietly erode core cognitive skills, while others genuinely augment how we think, learn, and perform. The same neural mechanisms that transform a violinist's brain after hundreds of hours of practice can be activated when users engage deeply with targeted software or hardware. How can that process be engineered and accelerated?You'll build toward answering that. This course covers fundamentals of psychophysics and sensory neuroscience (auditory, visual, motor) and cognitive learning, as well as key technology development considerations for relevant technologies. The course will go through case studies of sound and other sensory-rich consumer technology development breaking down the neural impact of current and past multimodal technology groups and understand the implications for how their function interacts with their user's neural systems. Focus will be on a group seminar and select projects to understand the: neural, cognitive, and behavioral implications of specific technology function. For the main project: you'll design and prototype a multi-sensory technology of your choosing with explicit, science-backed neuroplasticity goals for the behavioral and neural changes you intend to produce. Hardware provided as needed. Right now the technologies and tools we use in our daily lives are changing. Let's be our own architects for what it means for our brains.
Offered in Spring 2026 at Stanford University.