Why brain health is urgent priority for G7 member countries

by Guy Rouleau for The Conversation

Montreal: Housed within a bony skull, the human brain remains, in large part, a mystery to all of us in the medical community.

Structurally complex with a challenging anatomy, the brain is believed to comprise more than 3,000 different types of cells, whereas most tissues have no more than a dozen. It is dynamic, reacting to the environment and changing over time. It is also difficult to access and is rarely biopsied.

And yet the brain is the essence of who and what we are. The brain allows us to think, communicate, interact with others, perceive, move and experience the world.

To flourish, our societies and economies depend in large part on our brains' ability to function optimally. Given our ageing populations and declining birth rates, we are facing a perfect storm - fewer children and more elderly citizens - underscoring the vital need to optimise brain health for every citizen.

The June 2026 meeting of the Group of Seven (G7) countries in Evian, France, is an opportunity to make brain health a top priority.

An aging population

There are many factors influencing brain health over a human lifetime. For instance, some children are born with neurodevelopmental abnormalities such as intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder and learning disabilities.

Some children experience sub-optimal environmental conditions, such as poor prenatal care, inadequate nutrition and abuse, which can reduce the young brain's ability to achieve peak levels of performance and predispose them to mental health challenges.

These children may end up with fewer opportunities to live happy and fulfilling lives and may be less able to contribute to our society's success.

At the other end of the spectrum, our ageing population is subject to a variety of age-related neurodegenerative diseases, which cause suffering. Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and other dementing illnesses are increasing in frequency in G7 countries, leading also to rising health-care costs.

Health-promoting interventions

As a society, we must make significant efforts to improve brain health. Two strategies can help us achieve this goal.

First, we need to vigorously adopt evidence-based interventions that have been scientifically tested and demonstrated to work in improving brain health.

For children, these include improved prenatal care, sensory stimulation, active social interaction, improved nutrition, exercise and prevention of traumatic brain injury.

For adults, these interventions include reducing vascular risk factors such as hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity and smoking. In addition, they include improved nutrition, increased physical activity, healthy sleep and increased social interaction.

These known interventions must be endorsed and promoted by governments. We have seen, for example, the dramatic success of anti-smoking interventions in countries like Canada to reduce the incidence of emphysema and lung cancer.

We've also seen the impact of delayed government intervention and cultural attachment to tobacco on the rates of smoking in countries like France.

Funding for brain research

While there are many validated interventions to improve brain health, they are generally poorly taken up. Even if they were adopted by everyone, they would still fall significantly short of what's needed to reduce neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases.

The second strategy is to develop new interventions to improve brain health.

To make this possible, we need targeted and sustained funding for brain research across the world - especially in the G7 countries, which have ageing populations and the infrastructure and financial ability to invest in brain health research.

Genomics, proteomics, single cell biology, advanced brain imaging, artificial intelligence, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and new animal models must all be used to further our understanding of how the brain develops, functions and degenerates.

Open science research model

The great complexity of the brain and the challenges associated with its study will require large collaborative teams of scientists to work together. That's why it's essential that we adopt an open science research model so that data, algorithms and materials can be rapidly and freely shared, while preserving confidentiality and sovereignty.

For example, to best harness the power of AI, large, high-quality data sets need to be made freely available.

For all these reasons, the science academies of the G7 countries recommend that G7 leaders adopt brain health as a priority for all members. By doing so, they would improve individual lives and contribute to the betterment of our societies.

Guy Rouleau is a professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University