Experts called on world leaders at this week’s United Nations General Assembly to pay more attention to brain health, which they say doesn’t receive much attention and funding.
Although the brain serves as a command center for people’s thoughts, emotions, movements, and information, there’s a whole range of conditions and diseases that affect the complex organ, including autism, depression, anxiety, as well as neurological disorders like Parkinson’s and dementia.
Mental health conditions alone affect over 1 billion people globally, according to the most recent findings by the World Health Organization. Yet the U.N. agency finds governments on average spend just around 2% of their budgets on mental health services, unchanged since 2017.