Updated June 2026. Originally published October 2020.
What is your brain? How can you optimize decision-making?
Your human brain is the central organ of your nervous system, and together with the spinal cord makes up your central nervous system. It controls most of your body’s activities, processing, integrating, and coordinating information from your sense organs, and dispatching instructions to the rest of your body.
Your brain drives cognition, which runs through numerous processes and executive functions: filtering information with attentional control, manipulating information held in working memory, switching tasks with cognitive flexibility, suppressing impulses with inhibitory control, and assessing the relevance of information or appropriateness of an action.
To do all of that, your brain consumes up to 20% of the energy your body uses — more than any other organ.
As your brain dynamically processes information, electrical charges zip through circuits and neurotransmitters pass chemical messages across cells. Researchers estimate that brains operate at roughly one exaFlop — a billion billion calculations per second.
Even with all of that processing power, your brain’s decision-making around health can improve significantly.
Behavioral economics, decision-making and your health
Your brain does not act purely rationally. Behavioral economics makes this clear, and the implications for health decisions are real.
Human brains respond well to immediate threats but poorly to gradual, long-term ones we cannot see. Because poor diet or lack of exercise don’t deliver immediate consequences, the brain’s threat detection system largely ignores them. Life’s challenges get in the way for most of us. Recognizing these situations is the first step to overcoming them.
One specific pattern worth knowing: your brain primarily uses the last 10% of an experience to rate and remember it. If the ending isn’t enjoyable, that has a disproportionately negative effect on how the whole experience registers. That’s why children receive a lollipop after a doctor’s appointment — and why Keep.Health offers a reward at the end of every article.
Make a habit of consistently rewarding your brain after each healthy activity you complete.
How to improve your brain’s decision-making
Our brains are more dynamic than most people assume — what we do every day reshapes their structure and chemistry. Here are 10 things you can do to literally change your brain, with clear explanations of how each works. Sugar (#9), for example, directly causes measurable cognitive impairment.
Beyond that list: consistent quality sleep and regular exercise are the two most reliable brain optimization tools available. Meditation is a close third — people who meditate regularly show weaker connections with the brain’s default “Me Center” and stronger connections with the lateral prefrontal cortex, the “Assessment Center.” The practical result: meditators take problems less personally and approach them more logically.
Your brain on video games, music and social media
Video games change your brain in measurable ways — improving sustained and selective attention skills and increasing the size and efficiency of brain regions tied to visuospatial skills. The downside: researchers have found functional and structural changes in the neural reward system comparable to those found in addictive disorders.
Digital therapeutics have now moved beyond research into FDA-cleared products. Akili Interactive — now operating as a subsidiary of Virtual Therapeutics following a July 2024 acquisition — created two FDA-cleared game-based treatments for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD):
- EndeavorRx: Originally cleared in 2020, EndeavorRx remains an FDA-cleared prescription treatment for children ages 8–17 with primarily inattentive or combined-type ADHD. Clinical trials showed significant improvements in objective attention measures, with one-third of children showing no measurable attention deficit on at least one measure after four weeks.
- EndeavorOTC: FDA-cleared in June 2024, this is the first and only FDA-cleared over-the-counter digital therapeutic for adult ADHD. A clinical study in 221 adults found that nearly 46% met a prespecified threshold for clinically meaningful improvement after six weeks. Available without a prescription on the Apple App Store and Google Play.
Both products represent a meaningful shift: cognitive treatment delivered through an engaging game, validated through clinical trials like a drug but accessible as an app.
Music impacts the brain too. Brain.FM plays music scientifically designed to optimize brain performance for focus, relaxation, or sleep.
Social media activates the brain’s reward center, releasing dopamine with each positive interaction — a mechanism that can drive addictive patterns and disrupt focus, attention span, and mood. Excessive scrolling also overloads the brain with fragmented information, impairing cognitive function and memory. Artificial intelligence algorithms can now determine your personality from your social media use — a reminder of how much your digital behavior reveals about your cognitive patterns.
GLP-1 medications and the brain: an emerging frontier
One of the most significant brain health developments since this article was originally written has nothing to do with apps or games. GLP-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) — medications like semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy) and liraglutide, primarily known for treating type 2 diabetes and obesity — appear to have wide-ranging effects on the brain that researchers are only beginning to understand.
GLP-1 receptors appear throughout the brain in regions tied to cognition, emotion, and addiction, including the hippocampus, frontal cortex, and reward pathways. Research published in Cell Reports Medicine in 2025 summarized the emerging evidence across multiple neurological and psychiatric conditions:
Addiction: A 2025 randomized clinical trial published in JAMA Psychiatry found that once-weekly semaglutide significantly reduced alcohol use in adults with alcohol use disorder. Earlier observational and preclinical data suggest similar signals for nicotine, opioid, and other substance use disorders — an area of active clinical investigation.
Alzheimer’s disease: A Phase 2 trial of liraglutide in 204 patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease (the ELAD trial) found nearly 50% less brain volume loss in treated patients compared to placebo. Larger Phase 3 trials of oral semaglutide (the EVOKE and EVOKE+ trials, in people aged 55–85 with early Alzheimer’s pathology) are underway, with final cognitive endpoints expected from 2025 through 2026.
Depression: A 2024 meta-analysis of five randomized trials found a small but statistically significant reduction in depression scores in patients treated with GLP-1 RAs compared to controls. The likely mechanisms include reduced neuroinflammation and increased hippocampal neurogenesis — the same pathways targeted by conventional antidepressants.
This is promising but still early-stage research in humans. Most of the strongest mechanistic data comes from animal models. Observational studies of people already taking GLP-1 medications for metabolic reasons do suggest real-world brain health signals, but large randomized controlled trials with cognitive primary endpoints are still completing. For anyone currently taking these medications for obesity or diabetes, the potential brain benefits are an encouraging addition to an already strong metabolic rationale — not a reason to start them for neurological purposes alone. Discuss the full picture with your personal health team.
Avoiding addiction
Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent urge to engage in a behavior that produces reward, despite substantial harm. Repetitive use alters brain function in ways that perpetuate craving and weaken self-control — though not completely eliminate it. Habits tied to addiction typically involve immediate gratification coupled with delayed costs.
Addiction affects approximately 50% of Americans during their lifetime. One-third of inpatient hospital costs and 20% of all deaths in the US each year result from untreated addictions and risky substance use. Common addictions and estimated prevalence rates include alcohol (12%), shopping (6%), sex (5%), prescription drugs (5%), social media (10%), cannabis (3%), illicit drugs (3%), food (3%), and gambling (2%).
Recognizing these patterns — and redirecting them toward more constructive behaviors — is the first step. If that proves difficult, seek help from your primary care physician (PCP) or an addiction specialist. Behavioral therapy and medications both help, and the GLP-1 research described above adds a potentially new pharmacological avenue for certain substance use disorders. Also note that poor sleep significantly worsens cravings — better sleep is often the highest-leverage first step.
Overcoming depression
Overcoming depression requires a multi-faceted, evidence-based approach tailored to individual severity and circumstances.
For mild-to-moderate depression, exercise stands out as remarkably effective. A 2024 network meta-analysis of 218 studies found that walking, jogging, yoga, and strength training all significantly reduce depressive symptoms, with higher-intensity exercise showing particularly strong effects — aerobic exercise at just 140 minutes per week can be therapeutic.
Psychological interventions, particularly cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness-based approaches, show the most robust evidence for reducing relapse risk. Lifestyle modifications including a Mediterranean diet, consistent sleep, and smoking cessation can work additively with exercise to improve outcomes.
For treatment-resistant depression — cases where multiple antidepressants have failed — Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) offers a noninvasive FDA-cleared option with 50–60% response rates and minimal side effects beyond temporary scalp discomfort. Medicare and most major insurers now cover it.
Social connection also matters more than most depression treatment frameworks acknowledge — isolation is a meaningful driver of depressive symptoms, and its effects compound over time.
The most effective strategy often combines multiple approaches: regular physical activity, evidence-based psychotherapy, sleep hygiene, social engagement, and medication or TMS for more severe cases. Depression treatment is not one-size-fits-all, which makes working with a knowledgeable provider — rather than self-managing — especially important.
Protecting your brain from bacteria and viruses
Research confirms that microbiome bacteria and viruses can enter the brain and contribute to disease:
- Herpes research finds significantly elevated herpesvirus in the brains of people who died from Alzheimer’s.
- Large cohort studies find Parkinson’s occurs 28% more often in people with inflammatory bowel disease, pointing toward gut-brain pathways as a meaningful driver.
- Parkinson’s patients also show gut bacterial alterations that translate into substantial metabolic and disease differences.
Medical technology now delivers therapeutics across the blood-brain barrier, but prevention remains the better path. Keep.Health’s articles on healthy microbiome, proper breathing, and oral hygiene all cover relevant protective factors.
Researching your brain
For further exploration, here are the key thought-leaders and institutions in neuroscience:
- NIH BRAIN Initiative — The FY2025 budget allocated $321 million, a 20% decrease from $402 million in FY2024, which was itself a 40% decrease from the $680 million peak in FY2023. A scheduled ramp-down of the 21st Century Cures Act funding is the primary driver; base NIH funding of $230 million remains stable. FY2026 is expected to recover somewhat to approximately $429 million as Cures Act allocations rise again.
- MIT Picower Institute for Learning and Memory — Home of the Aging Brain Initiative and research into how brain waves control working memory.
- MIT McGovern Institute for Brain Research — Focused on preventing and treating brain disorders across seven neuroscience and engineering focus areas covering 13 major diseases.
- MIT Fluid Interfaces Lab — Designing systems for cognitive enhancement, including sleep research on increasing creative thought and memory consolidation.
- Harvard Brain Science Initiative
- UCLA Brain Research Institute
- Google DeepMind — Working to understand and reverse-engineer aspects of how intelligence and memory work in the brain, including through AI systems that now match or exceed human performance on a growing range of cognitive tasks.
Conclusion
This concludes this article. As your reward for continuing to focus on your health, explore how your brain thinks — and how human cognition is evolving — in two thought-provoking books:
And watch this six-minute video on Your Brain in Action, narrated by Alan Alda.
