Cognitive Development Across the Lifespan: From Prenatal Origins to Late Adulthood

Cognitive development encompasses the growth and transformation of mental processes including perception, memory, attention, language, reasoning, and problem-solving throughout the human lifespan. This developmental trajectory begins before birth and continues through old age, shaped by complex interactions between biological maturation and environmental experience. Recent advances in neuroimaging techniques have substantially refined understanding of these processes, enabling researchers to observe developing brain structures in utero, track cortical maturation through childhood and adolescence, and identify mechanisms of cognitive maintenance in ageing populations. Understanding cognitive development as a continuous, lifelong process has profound implications for education, clinical practice, parenting, and social policy, as it reveals the remarkable plasticity and continuity of human mental processes from conception through the final years of life.

Defining Cognitive Development

Cognitive development refers to the development of thinking across the lifespan, encompassing higher mental processes such as problem solving, reasoning, creating, conceptualising, categorising, remembering, and planning (Stratton & Hayes, 1999). These processes do not emerge fully formed but develop through progressive changes in both the structure and function of neural systems. Cognitive development involves both quantitative changes, such as increases in processing speed and memory capacity, and qualitative changes, such as the emergence of new reasoning abilities that fundamentally transform how individuals understand and interact with their world.

The study of cognitive development has been significantly influenced by Jean Piaget’s stage theory, which proposes that children’s thinking progresses through qualitatively distinct stages. Piaget’s framework includes the sensorimotor stage (birth to two years), preoperational stage (two to seven years), concrete operational stage (seven to eleven years), and formal operational stage (adolescence through adulthood) (Piaget, 1952, 1954). Piaget emphasised that children are active constructors of their own knowledge, continually assimilating new experiences into existing mental frameworks and accommodating those frameworks when they prove inadequate.

Contemporary research has expanded Piaget’s perspective to include prenatal development, continued cognitive change in later adulthood, and the neural mechanisms underlying cognitive growth. Information-processing approaches examine how attention, memory, and processing speed develop, while developmental cognitive neuroscience investigates the brain structures and functions that support cognitive abilities at different ages. These multiple perspectives provide a more comprehensive understanding of cognitive development as a lifelong process.

Prenatal Brain Development: Foundations of Cognition

The foundations of cognitive development are established during embryonic and fetal development through a precisely orchestrated sequence of neurodevelopmental events. The fetal brain undergoes complex and dynamic development processes from the fourth week of gestation until birth (Li et al., 2025). The cerebral cortex, brainstem, and cerebellum are the primary components of brain development, each with distinct developmental trajectories and functions.

The central nervous system derives from the neuroectoderm, with neurulation—the formation of the neural tube—occurring between three and four weeks of gestation (O’Rahilly & Müller, 2006). Failure of neural tube closure results in severe malformations such as spina bifida or anencephaly, highlighting the critical importance of this early period. The three primary brain vesicles (prosencephalon or forebrain, mesencephalon or midbrain, and rhombencephalon or hindbrain) are identifiable by approximately three to four weeks post-fertilisation. By five weeks, these have differentiated into five secondary vesicles: the telencephalon and diencephalon from the forebrain, the mesencephalon from the midbrain, and the metencephalon and myelencephalon from the hindbrain. The telencephalon, which will eventually form the cerebral hemispheres, begins to diverticulate at this early stage (O’Rahilly & Müller, 2006).

The brainstem and cerebellum develop earlier than cortical structures, beginning approximately four to six weeks after conception, which increases their susceptibility to influencing factors during intrauterine development (Li et al., 2025). The brainstem serves as a vital centre controlling physiological activities including respiration, heartbeat, blood pressure, digestion, and vasoconstriction. The midbrain functions as the reflex centre for hearing and vision, while the pons plays a role in regulating sleep. The cerebellum is essential for regulating movement, coordinating actions, and maintaining body balance, and additionally plays a crucial role in learning, adaptation, and emotional cognition. The brainstem and cerebellum synergistically contribute to higher motor control, balance regulation, and language development later in development (Li et al., 2025).

The cortical plate appears at stage 21 (approximately eight weeks), marking the beginning of cortical lamination (O’Rahilly & Müller, 2006). This process establishes the six-layered structure of the mature cerebral cortex, with different layers containing distinct types of neurons and making different patterns of connections. The timing of cortical plate formation is critical, as disruptions during this period can affect the basic architecture of the cortex. During pregnancy, the cerebral cortex of the fetus undergoes rapid maturation, and characteristics of cortical structure at birth have been shown to predict later function (Lindseth et al., 2025). The cortical plate begins forming around seven weeks post-conception, and by twenty weeks of gestation it can be observed as a smooth surface in fetal magnetic resonance imaging. The greatest increase in cortical thickness occurs mid-gestation, reaching approximately eighty percent of its maximum size by birth, while surface area expands from mid-gestation, reaching approximately twenty-five percent of its maximum size at birth. Most of the cortical folding occurs during the final trimester of pregnancy (Lindseth et al., 2025).

During the fetal period, neuronal migration occurs from six to twenty-four weeks, ensuring neurons reach appropriate positions within the developing cortex. Neurons are generated in germinal zones near the ventricles and then migrate along radial glial guides to their final destinations. Genetic mutations or environmental insults that disrupt migration can result in heterotopias—neurons in abnormal locations—which are associated with epilepsy and developmental delays.

Synaptogenesis, the formation of connections between neurons, begins during the third trimester and continues through adolescence. The developing brain produces an overabundance of synapses, many of which are later eliminated through synaptic pruning, a process that refines neural circuits based on experience. This overproduction and selective elimination allows experience to shape neural connectivity, a phenomenon underlying the brain’s remarkable plasticity.

Myelination, the insulation of neural pathways by oligodendrocytes that enables rapid signal transmission, commences in the third trimester and extends into adulthood. Myelination proceeds in a hierarchical fashion, with sensory and motor pathways myelinating before association areas, and posterior regions myelinating before anterior regions. The prefrontal cortex, essential for higher cognitive functions, is among the last areas to complete myelination, continuing into the third decade of life.

The brainstem, cerebellum, and cerebral cortex are interconnected, forming neural circuits that support behavioural and cognitive functions. Research using in vivo fetal magnetic resonance imaging has confirmed that connections between brain regions exist during pregnancy, and the development of the cerebral cortex is closely related to the development of the brainstem and cerebellum (Li et al., 2025). These interconnected systems establish the foundational circuitry upon which all subsequent cognitive development depends.

Cognitive Development in the Womb

Research indicates that the foundations of cognitive processing are established prenatally, although it would be inaccurate to attribute conscious thought or self-awareness to the fetus. The developing brain exhibits organised patterns of activity and responsiveness to environmental stimuli that represent the precursors of postnatal cognitive function.

The development of sleep-wake organisation provides evidence of emerging neural integration. Rudimentary behavioural cycling emerges during the final trimester, progressing from indeterminate states to well-defined active and quiet periods (Whitehead et al., 2024). During active states, fetuses exhibit limb movements, rapid eye movements, respiratory movements, and hiccups, while during quiet states they are almost completely quiescent. These state organisations become increasingly stable with advancing gestational age, reflecting maturation of brainstem and thalamocortical circuits.

By the third trimester, fetuses demonstrate clear behavioural responses to external stimuli. Vibroacoustic stimulation reliably elicits heart rate accelerations and body movements, indicating functional sensory processing. Fetuses also show habituation—decreased responding to repeated stimulation—which requires intact neural circuitry for detecting stimulus novelty and forming simple memories (Kisilevsky et al., 2004). Habituation is disrupted in fetuses with neurological abnormalities, suggesting it reflects basic information processing capacity.

Statistical learning, a fundamental cognitive mechanism enabling detection of regularities in environmental input, appears to emerge prenatally. Research has demonstrated that newborns exhibit sensitivity to statistical patterns in auditory input, and this sensitivity has prenatal origins (Kujala et al., 2023). The fetus is exposed to rhythmic and prosodic features of speech in utero, particularly the mother’s voice, and this exposure begins shaping neural circuitry that will later support language acquisition. Newborns prefer their mother’s voice over other female voices and show differential neural responses to familiar versus unfamiliar speech rhythms.

Studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging and magnetoencephalography have demonstrated that brain regions later responsible for higher cognitive functions are active in utero. Research observing fetuses from twenty-one to thirty-eight weeks gestation revealed that short-range neuronal connections develop particularly actively during weeks twenty-six through twenty-nine, while long-range nerve connections exhibit more linear growth throughout pregnancy (Kujala et al., 2023). Areas responsible for sensory perception develop first, followed approximately four weeks later by areas responsible for more complex cognitive skills, suggesting a hierarchical pattern of functional development.

Longitudinal studies tracking fetuses from the second trimester through postnatal development have provided compelling evidence for the significance of prenatal cortical development. Research examining fetuses with congenital heart disease compared to typically developing controls has demonstrated that differences in cortical development between groups only emerge after thirty weeks gestation (Wilson et al., 2025). Furthermore, lower regional cortical surface area growth was correlated with poorer neurodevelopmental outcomes at two years of age, highlighting the third trimester specifically as a critical period in brain development when reduced surface area expansion in specific cortical regions becomes consequential in later life and predictive of neurodevelopmental outcome in toddlerhood (Wilson et al., 2025).

This research demonstrates that cortical surface area expansion and gyrification are critical developmental processes in the fetal period for brain function and higher-order cognitive ability later in life. Abnormal cortical folding is a putative predictor of poor outcome across many psychiatric disorders, and evidence now indicates that these relationships begin in utero when the brain starts to gyrify and folding patterns first become established (Wilson et al., 2025).

A systematic review of four-dimensional ultrasound evidence examined whether fetal behaviours represent reflexive responses or early signs of integrated neural function (Pramono et al., 2025). Analysis of seventy-four studies revealed that fetal behaviours such as yawning, hand-to-face movement, and startle responses increase in complexity between twenty-four and thirty-four weeks gestation, aligning with neurodevelopmental events including thalamocortical connectivity and cortical folding. Fetuses show behavioural responses that suggest integration of sensory information across modalities, such as turning toward sources of stimulation and showing facial expressions in response to taste stimuli introduced into the amniotic fluid.

However, the researchers caution that no study provides definitive evidence linking observed behaviours to conscious experience or self-awareness. Fetal movements occur spontaneously, without external stimulation, and many apparently complex behaviours may be generated by spinal and brainstem circuits without cortical involvement. The question of fetal consciousness remains scientifically unresolved and ethically complex.

Pregnancy and Birth Factors in Cortical Development

Decades of research document that the period from conception to birth is crucial for the offspring’s subsequent development. Adverse events and exposures during this time have been linked to a variety of negative outcomes, including lower general cognitive ability, behavioural problems, and neurodevelopmental conditions (Lindseth et al., 2025).

Recent large-scale studies have substantially advanced understanding of how pregnancy and birth factors influence cortical development. Research employing multivariate approaches with 8,396 children aged 8.9 to 11.1 years from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study distilled numerous pregnancy and birth variables into four overarching dimensions: maternal pregnancy complications, maternal substance use, low birth weight and prematurity, and newborn birth complications (Lindseth et al., 2025). Using linked independent component analysis to fuse vertex-wise measures of cortical thickness, surface area, and curvature, the researchers found that maternal pregnancy complications and low birth weight and prematurity were associated with smaller global surface area. Additionally, low birth weight and prematurity was associated with complex regional cortical patterns reflecting bidirectional variations in both surface area and cortical thickness. Newborn birth complications showed multivariate patterns reflecting smaller occipital and larger temporal area, bidirectional frontal area variations, and reduced cortical thickness across the cortex. Notably, maternal substance use showed no associations with child cortical structure in this sample (Lindseth et al., 2025).

These findings underscore the importance of providing support to mothers and children during these crucial phases, helping to ensure optimal conditions for healthy child development. The study demonstrates that complications during pregnancy and fetal size and prematurity are connected to global surface area and specific regional signatures across child cortical MRI features (Lindseth et al., 2025).

Infant and Early Childhood Cognitive Development

At birth, infants enter a sensory-rich environment, and prenatal foundations are elaborated through environmental interaction. The newborn brain contains approximately 100 billion neurons, most of which have already migrated to their appropriate positions, but connectivity among these neurons is still rudimentary. The first years of life witness explosive growth in synaptic connections, with the density of synapses in some cortical areas eventually exceeding adult levels.

Postnatal development of the cerebral cortex is characterised by continued thickening for the first two years of life, followed by gradual thinning throughout childhood and adolescence. Surface area increases rapidly the first two years of life and continues to expand at a slower pace until middle childhood, followed by a subtle decrease through adolescence. Increases in cortical folding during the first two years of life are followed by slow decreases. Cortical development exhibits both individual and sex differences, and studies have shown that cortical morphology is highly heritable. Despite this strong genetic influence, environmental factors and experiences can fundamentally shape cortical structure (Lindseth et al., 2025).

During Piaget’s sensorimotor stage (birth to approximately two years), infants’ thinking is realised through perceptions of the world and physical interactions with it (Piaget, 1954). Infants progressively develop understanding of cause and effect, means-end relationships, and object permanence through active exploration. Piaget identified six substages within the sensorimotor period, each characterised by new cognitive achievements.

In the first substage (birth to one month), infants exercise their reflexes, sucking, grasping, and looking in response to appropriate stimuli. During the second substage (one to four months), primary circular reactions emerge, as infants repeat actions that produce interesting sensations centred on their own bodies, such as sucking their thumb or kicking their legs. The third substage (four to eight months) brings secondary circular reactions, as infants repeat actions that produce interesting effects on the external environment, such as shaking a rattle to hear its sound.

The fourth substage (eight to twelve months) marks the emergence of coordinated secondary circular reactions and intentional behaviour. Infants begin to combine schemas to achieve goals, such as pushing aside an obstacle to reach a desired toy. It is during this substage that object permanence begins to develop: infants will search for hidden objects, though their search is limited by their understanding of how objects move and disappear (Munakata et al., 1997).

The fifth substage (twelve to eighteen months) brings tertiary circular reactions, as infants actively experiment with novel actions to observe their effects. A toddler might drop a toy repeatedly from different heights or angles, exploring how it falls. The sixth substage (eighteen to twenty-four months) marks the transition to preoperational thought, as infants begin to use mental representation and solve problems through symbolic means rather than trial and error.

Contemporary research has modified Piaget’s account in important ways. Using methods that reduce demands on infants’ motor responses, researchers have demonstrated that some aspects of object permanence emerge earlier than Piaget believed. Infants as young as three and a half months show surprise when objects appear to vanish or pass through solid barriers, suggesting some implicit understanding of object continuity (Baillargeon, 1987). These findings indicate that infants possess more sophisticated cognitive abilities than Piaget recognised, though these abilities may not be accessible for guiding intentional action until later.

Research on very preterm infants has provided important insights into early brain-behaviour relationships. Studies utilising prospective cohorts of infants born before thirty-one weeks gestation, with magnetic resonance imaging acquired at twenty-nine to thirty-five weeks postmenstrual age and comprehensive neurodevelopmental evaluation at two years corrected age, have identified significant associations between brain structure on early MRIs and two-year outcomes (Pagnozzi et al., 2023). Important brain biomarkers from early MRIs include cortical grey matter volumes, as well as cortical thickness and sulcal depth across the entire cortex. Adverse outcomes on motor and cognitive composite scores can be accurately predicted from neonatal imaging, demonstrating the utility of imaging prior to term equivalent age for providing earlier commencement of targeted interventions for infants born preterm (Pagnozzi et al., 2023).

Statistical learning continues postnatally, with infants as young as eight months able to segment linguistic streams based on statistical cues after brief exposure (Saffran et al., 1996). In these experiments, infants hear a continuous stream of artificial speech sounds with no pauses or other cues to word boundaries, only transitional probabilities between syllables. After only two minutes of exposure, infants distinguish between statistically coherent sound sequences (words) and statistically improbable sequences (nonwords). This ability has been demonstrated across multiple sensory modalities, including visual, tactile, and musical domains, providing a domain-general mechanism for extracting patterns from the environment.

The developmental cascades model suggests that early features of object play and joint engagement in preterm infants predict cognitive development. Longitudinal research examining preterm infants at twelve and thirty months has revealed that features of infant-object interactions and joint engagement during parent-infant free play are associated with later cognitive outcomes (Liu et al., 2025). The frequency of infant-object interaction bouts per minute at twelve months was negatively associated with thirty-month cognitive scores, suggesting that more frequent object interactions may reflect less sustained engagement, while the percentage of infant-object interaction bouts in which parents practised multimodal engagement was marginally associated with cognitive scores, indicating the importance of parental scaffolding in early cognitive development (Liu et al., 2025).

During the preoperational stage (approximately two to seven years), children develop symbolic-representation capabilities evident in drawing, language use, and pretend play. The capacity for symbolic thinking transforms children’s cognitive worlds, enabling them to think about objects and events not present in the immediate environment. However, preoperational thinking is characterised by several limitations.

Preoperational children tend to focus on single dimensions even when problems require consideration of multiple dimensions (Piaget, 1952). This limitation, termed centration, is apparent in conservation tasks. When liquid is poured from a short, wide glass into a taller, thinner glass, the preoperational child typically insists there is more liquid now, focusing exclusively on the height dimension while ignoring the compensating change in width. Similarly, when shown two rows of counters with equal numbers but different spacing, preoperational children judge the longer row as having more counters, centring on length rather than counting.

Egocentrism, the difficulty in taking another’s perspective, characterises preoperational thought. In Piaget’s three mountains task, children choose a picture showing what they see rather than what a doll positioned elsewhere would see. This egocentrism extends to communication, with young children assuming others share their knowledge and using ambiguous language that assumes shared understanding.

Animistic thinking, attributing life and consciousness to inanimate objects, is common during the preoperational period. A child might say the sun follows them or that a table is mean when they bump into it. This reflects difficulty in distinguishing living from nonliving things and understanding the physical causality underlying natural phenomena.

The concrete operational stage (approximately seven to eleven years) brings capacity for logical thinking in concrete situations. Children overcome earlier centration tendencies and can reason systematically about problems grounded in tangible reality. Conservation of number, mass, and volume are typically achieved during this period, as children understand that transformations do not change fundamental quantities unless something is added or removed.

Concrete operational children develop classification skills, understanding hierarchical relationships among categories. They recognise that a rose is both a rose and a flower, and that there are more flowers than roses. Seriation, the ability to order items along a quantitative dimension, emerges, enabling children to arrange sticks from shortest to longest. Transitive inference, understanding that if A > B and B > C then A > C, becomes possible when problems are presented concretely.

However, concrete operational thinking remains tied to concrete reality. Children at this stage have difficulty reasoning about purely hypothetical situations or systematically testing hypotheses. They can reason logically when problems involve tangible objects they can manipulate, but abstract problems without concrete referents remain challenging.

Middle Childhood and Adolescent Cognitive Development

Middle childhood and adolescence represent periods of continued neural development and cognitive refinement. Research examining brain network reconfiguration in late childhood has provided insights into how functional brain organisation supports cognitive development during this period.

In order to transition between resting state and carrying out cognitively-demanding processes, the brain makes subtle changes to its network organisation. In adults, less reconfiguration relates to better task performance, suggesting a preconfigured brain organisation at rest is beneficial, such that only minute changes are required to execute task demands. However, research with children aged nine to eleven years reveals a different pattern: more reconfiguration between the resting state and executive function tasks is related to better task performance, as well as better crystallised and fluid cognition in some cases (Mitchell et al., 2025). These relationships hold even when accounting for network segregation.

These findings suggest a less-preconfigured, and thus more flexible, brain organisation that enacts more reconfiguration to move from the resting state into a task state is beneficial in children. This aligns with theories positioning late childhood and the beginning of adolescence as a period of increased brain plasticity where functional brain networks are still undergoing refinement, and thus preconfiguration may be less beneficial and, instead, may place premature constraints on brain organisation (Mitchell et al., 2025). Functional brain networks show rapid organisation in early life and then slowly refine into adulthood. Sensorimotor networks exhibit rapid development with significant maturation across the first two years of life, while brain networks that support higher-order processes and facilitate communication and information integration across networks are slower to mature and show significant change and refinement throughout adolescence. During this period of refinement, functional networks and their boundaries are not yet clearly defined, which suggests a potential lack of specialisation (Mitchell et al., 2025).

Adolescence also involves continued structural development, particularly in the prefrontal cortex, which undergoes synaptic pruning and myelination from birth through adolescence (Nelson, 2000). This region, essential for executive functions including planning, response inhibition, decision-making, and impulse control, is among the last to reach full maturation. Synaptic pruning in the prefrontal cortex during adolescence refines neural circuits, eliminating unused connections and strengthening those that remain.

Simultaneously, limbic system structures involved in emotional processing and reward sensitivity undergo significant development. The relative imbalance between mature limbic responses and still-maturing prefrontal regulatory systems may contribute to characteristic adolescent patterns of heightened emotional reactivity and risk-taking behaviour.

The formal operational stage, emerging around eleven or twelve years and continuing throughout life, brings capacity for abstract reasoning and systematic hypothesis testing (Piaget, 1952). Adolescents can reason about possibilities, not just actualities, and consider multiple variables systematically. They can engage in propositional thinking, reasoning about verbal statements without reference to concrete examples.

Formal operational thinkers can use combinatorial reasoning to generate all possible combinations of variables, as in Piaget’s famous pendulum problem. When asked what determines the period of a pendulum’s swing, concrete operational children experiment unsystematically, changing multiple variables at once. Formal operational adolescents systematically test each variable while holding others constant, generating all possible combinations and drawing appropriate conclusions about causality.

Adolescents develop capacity for metacognition—thinking about thinking itself. They can reflect on their own cognitive processes, evaluate the adequacy of their reasoning, and consider multiple perspectives on complex issues. This metacognitive capacity enables more effective learning and problem-solving, as adolescents can monitor their comprehension and adjust their strategies accordingly.

However, formal operational reasoning does not emerge universally or consistently. Many adults show formal operational thought in some domains but not others, and formal operations may depend on educational experience and cultural context. Furthermore, even when formal operational capacity is present, individuals may not consistently use it, particularly in emotionally charged situations.

Social cognition undergoes significant development during adolescence. Perspective-taking becomes more sophisticated, enabling adolescents to understand that others have unique histories, values, and perspectives that influence their behaviour. Adolescents develop more complex understanding of social conventions, moral principles, and their own identities.

Adult Cognitive Development

Cognitive development in adulthood involves both gains and losses, challenging simplistic models of either continued growth or inevitable decline. Research on adult cognitive development has identified differential trajectories for various cognitive abilities, with some showing age-related declines while others remain stable or improve.

Crystallised intelligence, representing accumulated knowledge and expertise, often remains stable or increases with age (Salthouse, 2010). Vocabulary, general knowledge, and expertise in familiar domains continue to develop through adulthood, reflecting cumulative learning and experience. An older adult may have richer semantic networks and more elaborate knowledge structures than younger individuals, enabling efficient processing within familiar domains.

Fluid intelligence, representing novel problem-solving ability, processing speed, and working memory capacity, typically shows decline beginning in early or middle adulthood (Salthouse, 2010). Tasks requiring rapid processing of novel information, mental manipulation of multiple items, or flexible shifting between mental sets generally show age-related decrements. These declines are associated with changes in brain structure and function, including reduced volume of prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia, decreased white matter integrity, and altered neurotransmitter systems.

Processing speed shows consistent age-related decline across many tasks. The processing speed theory of cognitive ageing proposes that slower processing accounts for many other age-related cognitive changes, as fewer operations can be completed within a given time and earlier processing may be lost before later processing is complete (Salthouse, 1996).

Working memory, the capacity to maintain and manipulate information over brief periods, shows age-related decline, particularly when tasks require simultaneous storage and processing. Older adults have difficulty with complex span tasks requiring both maintenance of information and concurrent processing, while simple span tasks requiring only maintenance show smaller age differences.

Attention shows complex patterns of age-related change. Sustained attention over long periods is relatively well preserved, but selective attention requiring inhibition of irrelevant information declines. Divided attention, particularly when tasks compete for similar processing resources, becomes more difficult with age.

Recent research using multi-echo blood oxygenation level-dependent neuroimaging has examined lifespan differences in three subcortical nuclei important to the neuromodulation of cognition: the locus coeruleus (the major source of noradrenaline), the nucleus basalis of Meynert (the major source of acetylcholine), and the ventral tegmental area (the major source of dopamine) (Riley et al., 2025). These subcortical nuclei are target sites for early Alzheimer’s disease pathogenesis in the isodendritic core. Studies with participants from nineteen to eighty-six years old performing tasks assessing attentional modulation of memory have revealed that young adults demonstrate a memory advantage for images paired with target tones relative to no tone, which is diminished in middle age and absent in older adults. Elevated nucleus basalis of Meynert and ventral tegmental area responses to subsequently remembered target-paired images were present in all groups but were selectively absent in the locus coeruleus of older adults. Moreover, only locus coeruleus activity explained individual variation in subsequent memory performance, indicating that even though activity in multiple modulatory nuclei contributed, age-related change in the attentional boosting of memory was specifically tied to altered locus coeruleus activity (Riley et al., 2025).

These findings are particularly significant given that the noradrenergic system has the unique distinction of being the first site of damage in Alzheimer’s disease, with tau tangles appearing in the locus coeruleus in the third decade of life and potentially spreading throughout the nervous system. Identifying the specific contributions of these subcortical neuromodulatory nuclei to attentional modulation of learning and memory, and age-related changes therein, has potential to better reveal the role of these systems in cognition and their trajectory across the lifespan (Riley et al., 2025).

Late Adulthood and Neurocognitive Aging

In late adulthood, typically defined as age sixty-five and beyond, cognitive changes become more pronounced, though with substantial individual variability. Some individuals maintain high cognitive function into their nineties and beyond, while others experience significant decline. Understanding factors associated with successful cognitive ageing is a major focus of current research.

Episodic memory, memory for specific events and experiences, shows the most consistent age-related decline. Older adults have difficulty recalling recent events, source memory (remembering where or when information was acquired), and prospective memory (remembering to perform intended actions). Recognition memory, however, shows smaller age differences than recall, suggesting difficulties in retrieval rather than encoding or storage.

Semantic memory, memory for general knowledge and concepts, remains relatively well preserved in healthy ageing, though retrieval may become slower. Older adults typically maintain vocabulary and knowledge of facts, though they may experience tip-of-the-tongue states more frequently.

Executive functions, including planning, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility, show age-related decline. Older adults may have difficulty with tasks requiring suppression of habitual responses, shifting between mental sets, or coordinating multiple tasks. These executive declines are associated with age-related changes in prefrontal cortex and its connections.

Brain changes in late adulthood include reduced brain volume, particularly in prefrontal cortex and medial temporal lobes, decreased white matter integrity, and accumulation of neuropathological changes including amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. However, the brain also shows plasticity, with some evidence for compensatory recruitment of additional neural resources to maintain performance.

Individual differences in cognitive ageing are associated with multiple factors. Cardiovascular health, including hypertension, diabetes, and obesity, affects cognitive outcomes. Physical activity, particularly aerobic exercise, is associated with better cognitive function and reduced dementia risk. Social engagement and cognitive stimulation also predict better cognitive outcomes. Genetic factors, including APOE genotype, influence risk for pathological cognitive decline.

Distinguishing normal cognitive ageing from pathological conditions such as mild cognitive impairment and dementia is clinically important. Mild cognitive impairment involves cognitive decline greater than expected for age but preserved daily function, while dementia involves decline sufficient to impair independent function. Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, and Lewy body dementia are common causes of pathological cognitive decline in late adulthood.

Cognitive Reserve and Successful Aging

The concept of cognitive reserve suggests that individuals engaging in intellectually stimulating activities throughout life may better withstand neuropathological changes without manifesting cognitive symptoms (Stern, 2009). Education, occupational complexity, and leisure activities contribute to cognitive reserve, potentially delaying onset of cognitive impairment.

Recent research has elucidated the neural mechanisms through which cognitive reserve protects cognitive function in aging. Studies investigating how cognitive reserve interacts with functional compensation mechanisms have tested two competing hypotheses (Zhang et al., 2025). The “facilitation compensation” hypothesis proposes that cognitive reserve enhances resources, enabling the brain to mobilise more higher-order brain regions to cope with task demands. The “delay upregulation” hypothesis proposes that cognitive reserve slows brain aging, thereby delaying the emergence of compensatory brain region activity upregulation and maintaining efficient patterns similar to those observed in younger individuals.

Research examining long-term musical training as a natural model of cognitive reserve, with participants including older musicians with over thirty years of instrument practice, older non-musicians, and young controls, has provided support for the delay upregulation hypothesis (Zhang et al., 2025). During functional magnetic resonance imaging while participants completed speech-in-noise perception tasks, older non-musicians showed significantly enhanced functional connectivity between higher-order regions in the auditory dorsal pathway and speech perception areas, reflecting compensatory activity. Older musicians, however, showed functional connectivity patterns more similar to young controls, supporting the delay upregulation hypothesis. Brain-behaviour correlation analysis further validated this view: brain activity patterns more similar to young controls predicted better behavioural performance. This research provides the first neuroimaging evidence clarifying the protective mechanism of cognitive reserve, demonstrating that it operates not through adding compensatory resources but by delaying the upregulation of task-related brain regions, thereby preserving brain function patterns closer to those observed in youth (Zhang et al., 2025).

Compensation strategies enable many older adults to maintain effective functioning despite age-related declines. Older adults may select particular activities to maintain, optimise performance through practice and strategy development, and compensate for losses by using external aids or alternative approaches (Baltes & Baltes, 1990). These selective optimisation with compensation strategies allow continued engagement in valued activities.

Wisdom, encompassing expertise in life pragmatics and exceptional judgment in complex situations, may represent a qualitative achievement of the ageing mind that draws upon accumulated experience and integration of cognitive and emotional information (Baltes & Staudinger, 2000). Wisdom involves rich factual knowledge about life, procedural knowledge for dealing with life problems, understanding of lifespan contexts, relativism of values, and management of uncertainty. These qualities typically require extensive life experience for their development and represent positive aspects of cognitive aging that complement understanding of age-related declines.

Nature and Nurture in Cognitive Development

Throughout the lifespan, cognitive development results from continuous interaction between genetic endowment and environmental experience. Behavioural genetics studies estimate heritability of cognitive abilities, but these estimates depend on the range of environments studied and the age of participants. Heritability of intelligence increases from childhood to adulthood, suggesting that genetic influences on cognition become more expressed as individuals select and shape environments consistent with their genetic predispositions.

Research on visual development demonstrates that even basic perceptual capacities depend on appropriate experience during sensitive periods (Held, 1993). Depth perception, for example, requires exposure to patterned light and normal brain activity during infancy; if such experience is unavailable due to congenital cataracts, depth perception remains abnormal even after surgical correction. Similar sensitive periods exist for language acquisition, with children deprived of linguistic input during early years showing persistent deficits.

Socioeconomic status affects cognitive development through multiple mechanisms including nutrition, healthcare, stress exposure, and cognitive stimulation. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds show lower average cognitive test scores, though individual variation within groups is substantial. Early intervention programmes can improve cognitive outcomes, particularly for children at environmental risk.

Parenting influences cognitive development through provision of stimulating experiences, sensitive responsiveness, and language input. The quantity and quality of child-directed speech predicts vocabulary development, with children exposed to richer language environments showing faster language growth. Warm, responsive parenting supports cognitive development by providing secure base for exploration. Research on preterm infants demonstrates that parental multimodal engagement during object interaction bouts is marginally associated with later cognitive scores, highlighting the importance of social scaffolding in early cognitive development (Liu et al., 2025).

Education systematically shapes cognitive development, teaching specific knowledge and cognitive skills while also producing more general effects on reasoning and problem-solving. Each additional year of education is associated with modest increases in cognitive test performance, and education may contribute to cognitive reserve in later life.

Children actively shape their own cognitive development by selectively attending to environmental aspects. From the first days after birth, infants choose to look at their mother’s face more than other female faces (Bartrip et al., 2001). As children mature, their contributions to their own development increase: older children and adolescents choose their environments to a larger degree than younger children, with significant consequences for cognitive trajectories (Scarr & McCartney, 1983). These active selections reflect and amplify individual differences in cognitive abilities and interests.

Conclusion

Cognitive development represents a continuous, lifelong process beginning in the earliest weeks of gestation and extending through the final years of life. Prenatal foundations are established through precisely orchestrated neurodevelopmental events, from brainstem and cerebellar development in the first trimester to elaboration of cortical connections in the third trimester. The brainstem, cerebellum, and cerebral cortex develop in interconnected fashion, forming neural circuits that support subsequent behavioural and cognitive functions (Li et al., 2025). Research using advanced neuroimaging techniques has demonstrated that the third trimester represents a particularly critical period when cortical surface area expansion becomes consequential for later neurodevelopmental outcomes (Wilson et al., 2025). Pregnancy and birth factors, including maternal complications, low birth weight, and prematurity, are associated with variations in cortical structure that persist into late childhood (Lindseth et al., 2025).

From infancy through old age, cognitive development proceeds through qualitative and quantitative changes shaped by biological maturation and environmental experience. The remarkable achievements of infant and childhood cognition, including statistical learning (Saffran et al., 1996) and object permanence (Baillargeon, 1987; Munakata et al., 1997), provide foundations for adolescent and adult reasoning. Early brain structure, particularly in very preterm infants, predicts later cognitive outcomes (Pagnozzi et al., 2023), and early social interactions, including joint engagement and multimodal parental scaffolding, support cognitive development (Liu et al., 2025).

Middle childhood and adolescence represent periods of ongoing brain network refinement, with greater flexibility in network reconfiguration supporting better cognitive performance (Mitchell et al., 2025). In adulthood, subcortical neuromodulatory nuclei, particularly the locus coeruleus, show age-related changes that affect attentional modulation of memory (Riley et al., 2025). However, cognitive reserve acquired through lifelong intellectual engagement, such as musical training, can protect cognitive function by delaying age-related upregulation of neural activity and preserving patterns similar to those observed in younger individuals (Zhang et al., 2025). Wisdom and selective optimisation with compensation strategies enable continued adaptation in later life (Baltes & Baltes, 1990; Baltes & Staudinger, 2000).

Understanding cognitive development as a lifespan phenomenon has profound implications for education, clinical practice, parenting, and social policy. It emphasises that potential for cognitive growth exists at every age, while also highlighting the particular importance of early experience for establishing neural foundations. It reminds us that cognitive development is not merely a matter of genetically programmed maturation but emerges from continuous interaction between active, developing individuals and their environments. Investment in cognitive development at all ages yields returns not only for individuals but for societies that depend on the cognitive capabilities of their members.