The Concept of Brainspan, the Healthspan of the Brain
Portions of the research community are concerned that the ability to preserve function in the aging brain is not progressing as rapidly as the ability to intervene in the aging of other organ systems in the body. This gives rise to articles such as the one here, which seeks to bring attention to this issue by coining a term for the healthspan of the brain specifically. The brain is complex, inaccessible, and irreplaceable in ways that are not the case for even, say, a heart, liver, or kidney. This constrains the strategies that might be developed to treat the aging of the brain, and those constraints in turn lead to concern regarding the development of future therapies.
Longevity medicine has achieved substantial gains in extending lifespan, yet these advances have not been matched by equivalent preservation of cognitive and functional capacity. As a result, many individuals now live longer while experiencing prolonged periods of cognitive decline, emotional dysregulation, sleep disruption, and loss of independence. Existing constructs, including lifespan and healthspan, insufficiently capture the central role of brain function in determining meaningful aging outcomes.
This article introduces the concept of brainspan, defined as the duration of life during which neural network efficiency remains sufficient to support autonomy, adaptive capacity, and coherent physiological and behavioral regulation. Brainspan is conceptualized as a dynamic systems property emerging from the integrated performance of cognitive, autonomic, sleep, emotional, and behavioral networks. We describe characteristic brainspan trajectories across the lifespan, identify chronic and episodic determinants of brainspan decline, discuss approaches to measuring brainspan using longitudinal, multimodal assessments, and outline implications for longevity medicine. Preserving brainspan reframes longevity from survival alone toward sustained independence, resilience, and functional agency across aging.