Perspective on investigation of neurodegenerative diseases with neurorobotics approaches

Abstract

Neurorobotics has emerged from the alliance between neuroscience and robotics. It pursues the investigation of reproducing living organism-like behaviors in robots by means of the embodiment of computational models of the central nervous system. This perspective article discusses the current trend of implementing tools for the pressing challenge of early-diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases and how neurorobotics approaches can help. Recently, advances in this field have allowed the testing of some neuroscientific hypotheses related to brain diseases, but the lack of biological plausibility of developed brain models and musculoskeletal systems has limited the understanding of the underlying brain mechanisms that lead to deficits in motor and cognitive tasks. Key aspects and methods to enhance the reproducibility of natural behaviors observed in healthy and impaired brains are proposed in this perspective. In the long term, the goal is to move beyond finding therapies and look into how researchers can use neurorobotics to reduce testing on humans as well as find root causes for disease.