Precision Brain Health Unlimited: from Big Data to Therapies

Brain disorders are worldwide the main contributor for disability-adjusted life-years cumulating up to 276 million DALYs (the sum of years of life lost [YLL] and years lived with disability [YLDs]) compared to any other human disease. Aging-associated pathologies - neurodegeneration and cerebrovascular lesions, have together with depression the lion’s share of disability impact, though dementia due to neurodegeneration is one of the most feared conditions in old age. Given current considerations that modifying lifetime risk factors could change the incidence and prevalence of dementia mainly in low and middle-income countries, also high-income countries like Switzerland face a major socio-economic burden counting currently 130'000 patients suffering from dementia at an annual 11 billion CHF or USD (10.2 billion EUR) in healthcare costs. Due to increasing population longevity and lack of curative treatment for dementia, the prediction is that in 2050 the number of cases will double, which suggests that the current healthcare system can hardly sustain the increasing burden.

The recent surge in digital health strategies and big data analytical methods in highly developed countries like Switzerland offers a unique opportunity to unite clinical research, industry, and non-profit organizations in a cohesive effort to make the quantum leap in understanding disease processes and lifetime factors contributing to dementia. Equally important is the collaboration with governmental and public initiatives to improve awareness and augment the resources for research on the healthy and diseased aging brain.

The aim of the Research Topic is to collect the latest findings and opinions on the topic of brain health & aging. While Neuroscience continues to lure many young scientists, therapeutic implementations are scarce. This open-access collection will summarize the findings on big brain data, early diagnostics, personalized therapeutics, and public dissemination, democratizing the knowledge about our central nervous system and empowering subjects to be more mindful about their brain and its dysfunction.

This Research Topic will be developed in close collaboration with the BrainFit4Life Symposium (https://brainfit4life.wordpress.com/) and will cover the themes discussed at the meeting: brain data registry, early diagnostics, therapeutics, and knowledge transfer to the public. Those axes will greatly enhance our understanding and facilitated the treatment of brain pathologies.

We intend to provide a collection of high-impact articles including Original Research, Reviews, Mini Reviews, Perspectives, etc. dissecting:

• The use of Big Data Registry for informed medical monitoring of Brain Health
• The developments of digital and molecular diagnostics for early dementia detection
• The path to precision medicine for wholistic curative approaches of neurodegenerative disease
• Exploiting phenotypic heterogeneity of the neurodegenerative disease
• The need for knowledge transfer about brain health to raise awareness and reduce stigma about dementia

Keywords: Brain Registry, Dementia, Diagnostics, Digital, Prevention, Lifestyle, Therapeutics, Brain Aging, Brain Health

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.