Brain Health: Cognition, Depression, and Neurodegenerative Diseases

Abstract

Brain health is highly related to the functionality maintenance of nearly all parts of the body and brain disorders can lead to severe physical and psychological disabilities. As the average life span has increased globally over the years, neurodegenerative diseases that normally occur during ageing have become an important health issue to be concerned about. Occurrence of neurodegeneration may subsequently lead to cognitive impairment and dementia; meanwhile dementia has been reported to be correlated with the incidence of depression. However, recent medication for brain disorder may be accompanied by unavoidable side effects, and some of those may have the disadvantage of off-target or single targeting. To overcome the shortages of developed drugs, the benefits of phytochemicals have gained attention. Several phytochemicals have been well studied with their sight-catching potential to address the brain health issue via multiple strategies and, more importantly, with fewer medicinal side effects. Therefore, the pathologies, the underlying mechanisms, and the strategic approaches taken for brain health with intervention of phytochemicals are discussed in this chapter.