In her new book, The 21st Century Brain, scientist Hannah Critchlow explores the often-overlooked skills that will be needed to thrive in the age of artificial intelligence and how we can cultivate them.

With the world around us changing at an ever-accelerating pace, you may fantasize about “upgrading” your brain so you can make sense of it all.

At first glance, this would seem impossible: our gray and white matter has largely the same structure as that of our Stone Age ancestors. In fact, if anything, our brains are a little smaller: archaeological remains suggest they have shrunk significantly over the past 10,000 years.

However, Hannah Critchlow, a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, offers many reasons to be optimistic. In his new book, he explains how we can all develop the mental flexibility that will be necessary to face the challenges ahead.

“I basically wrote it for myself, so I could make better decisions and improve my own life, especially now that I'm going through middle age,” she tells me. “But also for my parents, so they can maintain a healthy brain in old age, and for my son, who is now 10 years old. What can I do to help his brain flourish?”