Wednesday, July 23 | 4:00pm PT

Listen to Your Heart: A Contemporary Neuroscientific Validation of Embodied Contemplative Wisdom with Nicco Reggente, PhD

Neuroscientist and consciousness researcher Nicco Reggente, PhD, will explore the fascinating, science-backed connection between the heart and the brain in this mind-expanding Spark Salon. Drawing from the groundbreaking, soon-to-be-published study Heartbeat-Evoked Potentials as a Neural Marker of Meditative Depth, Nicco will unpack the ancient wisdom behind “listening to your heart” and what it actually means in modern neuroscience. You’ll discover how the body’s subtle signals, like your heartbeat, shape consciousness, mindfulness, and emotional regulation. Through the lens of interoception (our ability to sense internal bodily states), this session reveals how tuning in to the sensations of the body can help us respond more thoughtfully to life rather than react impulsively.

3:00pm: Doors open
4:00pm: Program begins promptly
5:00pm: Reception

Bio

Nicco Reggente, PhD, is a cognitive neuroscientist and entrepreneur. He currently serves as the Research Director at the Institute for Advanced Consciousness Studies, a nonprofit dedicated to democratizing non-ordinary states of consciousness. His work integrates meditation, aesthetic chills, and “technodelics” with neuroimaging, neurofeedback, and machine learning techniques to cultivate personalized experiences that promote well-being and facilitate adaptive belief updating. His past work includes enriching human memory with virtual reality, as well as predicting treatment trajectories with prognostic neuroimaging. Nicco is also a lecturer in functional neuroimaging at his alma mater, UCLA.