--- title: Aging Starts at 24 Years description: Is 24 the new 50? A new study suggests that cognitive decline begins earlier than we think. The study of more than 3,300 volunteers tracked the relationship between age and the speed at which people make decisions and shift between tasks canonical: https://time.com/63500/brain-aging-at-24/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-04-15T16:08:11.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T07:18:57.292Z article:section: Health og:title: Don't Envy 20somethings: Turns Out Aging Starts at 24 og:description: Is 24 the new 50? A new study suggests that cognitive decline begins earlier than we think. The study of more than 3,300 volunteers tracked the relationship between age and the speed at which people make decisions and shift between tasks og:url: https://time.com/63500/brain-aging-at-24/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Don't Envy 20somethings: Turns Out Aging Starts at 24 twitter:description: Is 24 the new 50? A new study suggests that cognitive decline begins earlier than we think. The study of more than 3,300 volunteers tracked the relationship between age and the speed at which people make decisions and shift between tasks twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Our Brains Begin to Slow Down at Age 24 > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Health Matters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Health Matters is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. The latest health news and expert advice on living well. Health Matters makes the fast-moving world of health more useful, surprising and human, from the latest science and medical breakthroughs to practical ideas for living better. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Apr 15, 2014 4:08 PM UTC  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Apr 15, 2014 4:08 PM UTC Is 24 the new 50? If you’re going by when our intellectual skills start to decline and dull due to the passage of time, then it might be. According to researchers at Simon Fraser University in Canada, things start going south at age 24\. They came to that conclusion after studying 3,305 volunteers aged 16 years to 44 years. The participants played a real-time game that approximated everyday real-world situations that test our cognitive abilities, from concentration to juggling multiple tasks to shifting our focus from immediate to long-term issues. The game recorded the players’ moves, and researchers analyzed hours of data from it. As expected, the speed with which the volunteers made decisions, and shifted between tasks, declined with age. Many studies have documented the gradual deterioration of cognitive skills over time. But in this study, [published in the journal _PLOS One_](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0094215), the drop, albeit small, was detected first among 24 year olds. In fact, for every 15 years after age 24, cognitive speed dropped by about 15%. And the results could not be explained by the fact that the players were getting better at navigating the game over time; the age-related decline remained, even among those with more skill playing the game. This doesn’t mean it’s all downhill after your mid 20s. As cognitive speed slows, the brain makes up for some of the deficit in a variety of ways: by relying on experience to anticipate and more accurately predict upcoming tasks, as well as by employing mental shortcuts such as eliminating extraneous information and paring down incoming information to just core nuggets of relevant material. So while we may get slower, we might also be getting smarter. 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