The Brain Capability Framework: A Condition-Agnostic Reference Architecture for Functional Brain Assessment

Existing frameworks for understanding brain function and its disruption — including the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), the NIMH Research Domain Criteria (RDoC), the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP), and classical neuropsychological assessment traditions — share a common structural limitation: they are designed either for professional administration, symptom-based classification, or computational modelling, and none provides a human-centred, condition-agnostic reference architecture that is accessible without specialist expertise and oriented toward exploration rather than determination. This paper introduces the Brain Capability Framework (BCF), a structured capability model that describes what the brain does across ten functional layers — independent of any clinical condition, acquired state, developmental stage, or experiential event. Drawing on established practice in enterprise capability modelling and business architecture, the framework treats the brain as a reference system against which any overlay — neurological condition, psychiatric condition, acute state, physical condition, or external experience — can be applied using a consistent impact schema. The schema classifies capability impact by type (availability, reliability, quality, direction, latency), severity, context dependency, and interaction effects, enabling the generation of structured capability impact signatures that are consistent with a range of possible conditions or states rather than determinative of any single one. Input to the framework is human-centred and permissive: story, feeling, memory, sensation, and observed behaviour are all valid entry points, with a translation layer responsible for distilling functional signal from narrative input. Output is always exploratory and plural, presenting what a capability pattern is consistent with rather than what it confirms. The framework has potential applications at the individual, organisational, clinical, and research levels, and is proposed as a complementary instrument to existing assessment approaches. The framework is at the conceptual stage and has not yet been empirically validated. This paper establishes the originating conceptual architecture and situates it within the existing literature.