
Such diseases are responsible for the greatest economic burden and influence the lives of millions of
people worldwide, for instance, in 2010, more than 179 million people in Europe were affected by
brain disorders with an associated bill of around 800 billion euros [3]. According to the Global Burden
of Disease Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) in 2016, neurological disorders were reported as
the top leading causes of disability in the globe with 11.6% Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs)
(~276 million per year), and second leading cause of deaths after cardiovascular diseases with 16.5%
of all deaths (~9 million) [3]. A general summary of the most common neurological disorders, their
effects and economic burden is listed in Table 1. Currently, there is no effective therapeutics to cure
such disorders, except for some traditional pharmaceutical drugs that could reduce the symptoms
severity such as dopaminergic treatment for PD and movement disorders, cholinesterase for cognitive
disorders, anti-inflammatory and analgesic for neuronal infections and pain, antipsychotic for
dementia, etc.[4], [5]. To this end, a large body of research is focusing on establishing novel
therapeutic tools and strategies by targeting the nervous system, as in the case of Deep Brain
Stimulation (DBS) [6]–[8] , as alternative treatment to the traditional pharmaceutical approaches.
In the last 20 years, neurotechnologies aimed at interfacing the brain with machines and computers
(i.e., BMI/BCI Brain Machine Interface/ Brain- Computer Interface) emerged as interesting tools to
allow paralyzed people to communicate and interact with the external world. At the same time, they
started to be used to investigate brain functions in different experimental conditions.
Neurotechnologies or specifically neural interfaces cover any method or electronic device (e.g.,
electrodes, computers, robotic arm, etc.) that interface with the nervous system to monitor or alter
neural activity. They can either record and decode the brain signals into control commands or
electrically stimulate the brain to modulate its activity. Several neurotechnologies have been
developed in the past few decades which proved to be useful for both assistive and rehabilitative
applications, for example in cochlear implants for restoring hearing [9], retinal implants for restoring
vision [10], [11] , and brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) for brain-controlled applications [12] . More
recently, the advances in neuroscience and engineering technologies, along with the development of
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning-related techniques have allowed neurotechnologies
to become intelligent for achieving a better performance [13]–[16].
Nowadays, researchers consider neurotechnologies to be the next game-changer for diagnosis,
treatment and even prediction of neurological and psychiatric disorders [13], [17], [18]. However,
most of the current ones are still limited to laboratories and their performance needs to be improved
so that they can be used in real life scenarios [18].
Table 1: Top leading neurodegenerative diseases based on world health organization (WHO) reports [2], [3], [19]
Neurodegenerative
Diseases
Percentages and economic Burden
Alzheimer’s disease
- Dementia causes symptoms that affect
memory, thinking, and social abilities
severely enough to interfere with a patient’s
daily life.
- Memory Loss, planning difficulties, mood
changes, personality changes, Confusion
about time and place.
- Over 50 million people worldwide were living with
dementia in 2020 (will double every 20 years).
- ~10 million new cases every year (one every 3 seconds).
- 7th leading cause of death.
- In 2018, it costed one trillion USD (it will be around two
trillion by 2030).
- Rigidity, postural disturbance, rest tremor,
slow movement, anosmia in early stages.
- 10 million patients affected globally (1.5x more likely
men than women)
- The prevalence ranges from 41 per 100,000 among people
in their thirties to more than 1,900 per 100,000 among
those who are over 80.
- In 2016, it caused 3.2 million DALYs and 211.96 deaths.
- In 2021, in the USA it costed 51.9 billion USD (double
- Multiple sclerosis is a disease with
unpredictable symptoms that can also vary
- ~around 2.8 million people worldwide registered.
- Women four times more likely to have MS than men.