A new kind of capital
For decades, we have treated brain health solely as a medical issue, something to address only when it begins to fail. That’s beginning to change, as more experts recognize that the capabilities of the human mind (our ability to think, adapt, learn, and make decisions) impact more than just the day-to-day lives of individuals. They influence the well-being and stability of families, workplaces, populations, and society at large. Investing in brain health and skills could raise global GDP by as much as 12 percent, generating up to $11.7 trillion in economic value, according to the McKinsey Health Institute. It’s time to start investing accordingly.
We are entering an era defined by “brain capital“: the cognitive and emotional resources that drive productivity, innovation, and resilience. In an increasingly digital economy shaped by AI, longer lifespans, and constant disruption, the human ability to think critically, engage creatively, plan holistically, and respond empathetically is not a soft asset but capital in the fullest economic sense: a resource that compounds when invested in and depreciates when neglected.
Yet, we do not invest in it that way.
A scientific inflection point
Brain capital isn’t fixed. It grows or shrinks depending on how much we invest in it, which raises the question: What does that mean for how the brain ages? Our thinking hasn’t caught up. For years, the field operated on a simple assumption: that the aging brain is declining hardware, a system to be preserved for as long as possible before the inevitable losses set in.
It’s time to rethink that assumption. Breakthroughs in the biology of aging now allow us to measure how we age with precision, while cognitive neuroscience has deepened our understanding of how memory, attention, and decision-making evolve across the lifespan. The brain is continuously changing and adapting. While some cognitive functions may decline with age, others persist, compensate, and even strengthen. The question is no longer how we slow cognitive decline, but how we understand, support, and leverage this dynamic brain aging process.
The field of infant and early childhood development offers a precedent for this kind of shift. For decades, we underestimated what babies could do: reason, model the world, and build expertise from the very first months of life. Development was viewed largely as a passive unfolding of basic capacities, until we flipped the question and asked what babies were actually capable of. Answering it required a fundamental change in how we measured and interpreted infant behaviors, centered on a model of developmental cascades, in which previous experiences and innate change shape each subsequent stage. That shift in scientific understanding eventually led to a fundamental change in how parents engage with their babies and gave rise to concepts like school readiness and the importance of early childhood education. What if we made the same shift at the other end of the lifespan, trading a deficit-focused lens for a capacity-focused one?
From decline to capacity
If brain capital underpins economic vitality, our strategy must expand beyond a prevention and treatment model to one rooted in a more complete understanding of how cognition changes with age. Once developmental researchers moved beyond measuring only what babies couldn’t do yet and began asking what they were capable of, an entirely new mindset followed, along with a whole set of institutions built around it. There may be a lesson here for the field of cognitive aging.
That means resourcing research, health systems, and workplaces to actively cultivate the capacities that strengthen with age: contextual judgment, decision-making, and emotion regulation shaped by decades of experience. In a fast-changing economy, these look less like liabilities and more like underdeveloped assets.
An economic imperative
The implications of human cognition extend beyond the lab. As the population ages and workforce demands shift, cognitive resilience will become a defining factor in economic competitiveness. Globally, the population of individuals age 60 and older is expected to double to 2.1 billion by 2050, placing pressure on economic, political, and health systems across the world.
Employers are already confronting the need for continuous learning and adaptability, while policymakers increasingly recognize the link between brain health, health care costs, and productivity. At the same time, efforts are growing to better define and measure “brain skills” such as flexibility and resilience.
A call to invest
If we continue to treat brain health, including how the brain ages, solely as a medical issue, we risk missing its broader role in economic and societal well-being. But if we recognize brain capital, and the aging brain’s capacity to grow it, then we also have to start prioritizing neuroscience research accordingly, not just for what it tells us about health, but for what it means for economic growth. Understanding how cognition changes across the lifespan deserves the same funding urgency we give any other driver of productivity and resilience. The Nature Medicine Commission on Brain Health for Economic Resilience, launched this year, is already leading that charge, building the evidence base to treat brain capital as a measurable, modifiable driver of economic resilience. Every day, the ground around us shifts. The question is whether we’re prepared to shift with it.
Alice Luo Clayton is a health care executive.
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