The future of brain health: Early detection, equity and systematic change

The brain is the foundation of how we live, work, and connect and as societies age, the burden of
brain-health conditions is rapidly rising. By 2050, more than 2.1 billion people will be over the age of 60, and the number of people living with dementia is projected to triple to 150 million.

We are entering a pivotal era in which brain health must become a global priority, but progress will depend on more than scientific discovery alone. Equity, access, and public understanding must advance just as rapidly as the science.

This year, we attended The Brain House, an annual event held in Davos alongside the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting. Alongside global leaders, scientists, policymakers, and innovators, we examined the most urgent challenges and opportunities in brain health and how we can build healthier lives and stronger futures for all.

Across the week, four themes stood out consistently in conversations, each revealing where progress is possible and where urgency is greatest.

Entering a new era: Early detection and prevention

We are getting closer to a new era where dementia can be detected, and potentially prevented, years before symptoms appear. Although dementia is still widely viewed as a symptomatic condition, there is a growing body of evidence showing that Alzheimer’s disease, and potentially other dementias, are decades-long biological processes, with pathology beginning 10 to 20 years before symptoms appear.

Blood-based biomarkers are one of the most promising tools in this space, with the potential to flag risk 10 to 15 years in advance. Whilst in Davos, news broke of Bio-Hermes-002, a landmark study we are co-funding which aims to validate a cost-effective finger-prick style blood test, comparing blood-based biomarkers with current gold-standard methods. It is the largest and most diverse international study of its kind, designed to make earlier diagnosis accurate and accessible for all.

Just as blood pressure and cholesterol checks have transformed the prevention of cardiovascular disease, these biomarkers could shift dementia care from late-stage crisis response to true primary prevention.

But breakthroughs only matter if people are ready to use them. Public understanding, language, and media narratives will determine whether people embrace routine brain health checks as these innovations begin to reach clinical practice, possibly in the next 3 to 5 years.

While dementia is often spoken about as a single condition, it is actually an umbrella term referring to symptoms caused by different neurodegenerative disorders. Rare dementias account for around 15% of all dementia cases and offer some of the clearest insights into why early detection matters. They often begin at a younger age and progress more rapidly, disrupting careers, family life, childcare, and long-term planning. Yet they’re often initially misdiagnosed.

These conditions are not only underserved but also scientifically invaluable: many rare dementias have more distinct biological signatures and earlier, clearer signals of disease. This makes them powerful models for understanding mechanisms of neurodegeneration and developing tools that can identify risk much earlier, helping accelerate progress toward timely diagnosis, prevention, and precision trials for all.

Equity isn’t optional: Ensuring fair access to innovation

AI has the power to transform brain health, but only if it works for everyone. Automated screening tools are emerging as a scalable way to reduce wait times for cognitive assessments and close the treatment gap, helping ensure that people don’t miss critical windows for intervention or entry into clinical trials.

Today, most AI models are trained on datasets from the Global North, risking biased tools that misinterpret or overlook cognitive changes in other populations. While dementia cases will rise everywhere, by 2050, it is projected that 71% of people living with dementia will be in low‑ and middle‑income countries in the Global South, representing a 200% increase. Yet these regions remain dramatically underrepresented in research and clinical trials.

Progress will require scaling research, funding, and innovation in regions where the disease burden is highest and ensuring underrepresented groups are active participants in research, not just recipients of imported solutions.

Dementia also disproportionately affects women. Around two-thirds of all dementia cases occur in women and women shoulder the majority of caregiving responsibilities for family members living with the condition. Despite this burden, women face higher rates of misdiagnosis, with symptoms often attributed to depression or menopause.

Simultaneously, a significant gender bias persists in the science itself: preclinical animal models remain overwhelmingly male, a pattern especially pronounced in neuroscience research. Far more research is needed to better understand the causes of this disproportionate vulnerability of women to dementia and sex-specific clinical trial endpoints should be considered.

Breaking down silos: Including mental health in the brain health discussion

As mental health conditions lack established biomarkers, they’re often undervalued compared to diseases with clear biological indicators. Yet mental health is a silent economic crisis, driving huge productivity losses and requiring urgent attention from employers and policymakers.

Mental health challenges are also common comorbidities in chronic illness, meaning healthcare workers need stronger training to identify, diagnose, and support mental health needs as part of routine care.

Speakers at The Brain House, including mental health advocate Patrick J. Kennedy, called for mental health literacy and stress management skills to be embedded into leadership development and urged employers to ask themselves: “How would you want your loved ones to be treated?”

Historically, the brain has been treated in silos: psychiatry and neurology. But experts are calling for bringing mental health fully into the brain health agenda to reduce stigma and to support research into the biological links between mental health conditions and neurodegenerative diseases.

Rethinking investment: What it takes to scale innovation

Accelerating progress will require bold new financing models. Prevention is notoriously hard to fund; policymakers tend to tackle visible crises rather than supporting the slow, structural work of averting them.

Lifestyle-based interventions such as exercise, nutrition, sleep, social connection and meditation have all shown to support longevity and reduce brain health risks but lack large-scale evidence and reimbursement frameworks. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical and diagnostic innovation will only succeed if reimbursement systems are designed around long-term value, not short-term cost.

System fragmentation compounds the challenge. Budget silos mean that the organisations paying for new diagnostics or preventive tools are often not the ones who benefit from fewer hospitalisations, reduced crises, or greater productivity. This disconnect slows innovation and discourages investment.

There is a need for public–private partnerships, coordinated investment models, and system-level infrastructure that supports prevention at scale. Proposals from experts included a Brain Capital Index to quantify the economic value of brain health and support smarter funding decisions, and the use of AI to reduce costs and streamline early detection.

Without sustained financing, even the most promising innovations will struggle to reach the people who need them most.

As the burden of conditions undermining brain‑health accelerates, the conversations in Davos made one thing clear: progress will rely on action as much as innovation. The path forward demands collaboration across sectors and across borders. If we can meet this moment with ambition and equity, we have the opportunity to get ahead of a potential economic and social crisis and reshape the future of brain health for generations to come, for all.