For an executive, the plasticity of your brain is not a wellness topic: it is the biological foundation of your capacity to decide and to last. A well-maintained brain learns, rewires itself and absorbs shocks; a sluggish brain decides later and takes pressure less well. This article belongs to executive energy — the capacity to act and to hold the role, down to its biology.
Professor Brant Cortright, a leading author on neuroscience and the power of neuroplasticity, delivers a diagnosis whose stakes go far beyond individual health. For an executive, the state of your brain is the substrate of every decision you make.
“I believe there are more neurotoxins in the environment than there have ever been before…”
Anxiety, depression and cognitive decline: where we stand today
All three phenomena are breaking records compared with where they stood 50 years ago. Rates of anxiety, depression and cognitive decline, including among the young, are far higher than they used to be.
Today, schoolchildren show anxiety rates eight times higher and depression rates five to eight times higher.
And this is not the product of better diagnosis. These findings come from the same standardized tests used in the 1960s.
One woman in four, between 20 and 45, takes an antidepressant. Alzheimer's rates are five times higher than they were then.
The evidence is unequivocal: these disorders now reach the youngest populations and are rising sharply. Why?
One reason lies in the shared brain mechanisms behind these three disorders. They involve different psychological mechanisms, but similar brain mechanisms.
The point, then, is to adopt an integral approach — one that considers the individual as a whole, as a psychophysical being.
We cannot be reduced to either one alone.
We are multidimensional beings: we exist simultaneously on several levels — physical, emotional, mental and cognitive.
Everything we experience, we experience through the brain. The question is therefore how a weakened brain becomes vulnerable to these disorders, and how a fragmented, fragile internal organization is more exposed to them.
For an executive, the stakes are direct: you have to address both sides of the machine, the physiological and the psychological, because that machine is what produces your decisions.
An integral approach to brain health
After many years as a therapist and professor with a transpersonal orientation, Cortright has always been interested in the different levels of consciousness. This integral approach to brain health is concerned first and foremost with consciousness. The psyche can be seen as the combination of several levels of consciousness.
There is the body, the “physical” level of consciousness in which we move and which supplies our sensory information.
There is an emotional level, where our emotional sensors inform us about the world and the people around us — information no other channel can produce.
How we feel also determines the quality of how we function. When the internal state is good, judgment is sharp. When it deteriorates, the perception of reality blurs. For an executive, this is precisely what separates a clear-eyed reading of a situation from a decision biased by exhaustion.
Mental acuity is a decisive element of how we perceive the world.
These are very different processes occurring on distinct levels: cognitive, emotional and semantic.
Until recently, he dealt more with the psychological side than the physical one — in depression, for example.
Two competing theories explain it: either a biological cause lies at the origin of depression, or maladaptive behavior generates it by driving changes in the brain.
We are back to the chicken-and-egg question.
He has come to think it is, in fact, a matter of chicken and egg.
Conclusion: depressive disorder results from the conjunction of both.
What neurotoxins are and how they affect neuroplasticity
A form of brain dysfunction is taking hold today.
I believe there are more neurotoxins in the environment than there have ever been before.
We know some of them: mercury, aluminum, arsenic, lead. But many others exist, unidentified and undocumented.
There are also emotional, mental and cognitive neurotoxins.
And of course, diet. He set out to understand how diet influences the brain, how it builds it, and which neurotoxins actually weigh on it.
One point is decisive: contrary to a widespread idea, the brain is not a computer. It is a living process, permanently growing and in motion.
It looks more like a vast amoeba, constantly forming new connections with itself in response to the environment.
Neuroplasticity in the form of synaptogenesis has been known for years. But neurogenesis — the creation of new brain cells — was discovered only about twenty years ago.
At first, researchers did not grasp its importance. Then they observed that the rate of neurogenesis and neuroplasticity had a direct impact on how we function.
It turns out that the rate of neurogenesis — the speed at which the brain produces new cells and new connections — is the most important biomarker of brain health, and the one most people have never heard of.
When the brain is alive and in motion, with a high rate of neurogenesis, functioning is optimal: attention is available, decisions flow.
When that neurogenic rhythm slows, when the brain's movements become lethargic, anxiety, depression and cognitive decline appear. And all of it plays out in the hippocampus.
How the hippocampus works
The hippocampus is the only part of the brain that produces new brain cells. This crescent-shaped structure sits on both the right and left sides of the brain.
We actually have two hippocampi.
One is involved in processing new memories, the other in regulating emotions.
The hippocampus does not store new memories: it processes them, it creates them. So when the rate of neurogenesis is high, we learn, we are engaged. Memory underpins the entire sense of “self.”
That is why, in Alzheimer's disease, which massively attacks the hippocampus, new memories no longer form. And when that happens, executive function disappears, memory disappears, the “self” disappears.
The other hippocampus is involved in regulating emotions, particularly anxiety and depression. When rates of neurogenesis and synaptogenesis are high, we are protected against stress, anxiety and depression, and our functioning remains stable.
The neurotoxic environment almost all of us live in today damages neuroplasticity and slows the rate of neurogenesis.
Almost everyone is running at a level of neurogenesis and synaptogenesis lower than it should be.
Hard stretches are part of the job. But when the brain works well, we do not panic: we cope. Setbacks come, and we recover. For an executive permanently exposed to uncertainty, that is exactly the margin on which the capacity to absorb a shock without losing course depends. Hence the importance of working on neuroplasticity.
How stress influences neuroplasticity
Stress becomes a neurotoxin when it is chronic.
We need a certain amount of stress. The brain develops through moderate, short-term stress: it increases neuroplasticity, neurogenesis and synaptogenesis. The brain needs to be challenged, and when it is, it responds by bringing out its own potential.
The brain wants to be engaged with the world in that way. That is not the kind of stress most people complain about.
The problem of the century is chronic stress: the kind that dramatically slows neurogenesis and synaptogenesis.
It is also the kind that triggers brain inflammation and sustains dysfunction.
Neuroscience and neuroplasticity: the levers of executive performance
Advances in neuroscience and the concept of neuroplasticity have transformed our understanding of the human brain and opened concrete perspectives on executive performance. None of the above is a peripheral wellness topic: it is the biology of decision-making under pressure, of a chief executive's mental load, and of clarity in the Executive Committee.
What neuroplasticity changes for an executive
Neuroplasticity — the brain's capacity to rewire itself in response to new experiences — sits at the heart of modern neuroscience. This adaptability means an executive can, at any age, acquire new decision reflexes, modify entrenched behavioral patterns and strengthen their leadership capacity.
Three direct implications for leadership
- Continuous learning: neuroplasticity makes it possible to acquire new skills and habits throughout your trajectory — the condition for a sustained rise in standards at the head of an organization.
- Behavioral rewiring: neuroscience-based protocols make it possible to reshape thought patterns and install more productive decision behaviors.
- Resilience under pressure: understanding how the brain works helps regulate emotions and hold course through crises and high-stakes decisions.
From brain mechanisms to executive practices
Since every brain is unique, neuroplasticity-based protocols adapt to each executive's specific context and load. Several documented levers act directly on the rate of neurogenesis and on emotional regulation:
- Directed attention: focus practices strengthen concentration and situational awareness, both decisive for decision-making and stress regulation.
- Mental rehearsal: the structured projection of a scenario stimulates the neural circuits associated with execution and confidence, making it easier to commit to high-stakes objectives.
- Structuring routines: installing routines supports cognitive stability and efficient functioning over time.
In summary
Findings in neuroscience and the role of neuroplasticity put the question of executive performance back on a biological footing, not on wellness injunctions. Your brain is built to adapt, grow and rewire itself. The room for maneuver comes down to one decision: treating your brain function as a performance asset, on a par with your strategic decisions.