Design, synthesis, and biological evaluation of novel indanone-based hybrids as multifunctional cholinesterase inhibitors for Alzheimer's disease

•Novel indanone-carbamate (inspired from donepezil-rivastigmine) with anti-ChE activity were designed and synthesized.•X-ray structure analysis for the chiral center of 4a was assigned.•In vitro anti-ChE activities of the novel compounds were determined and AChE and BChE inhibition mechanisms of the most potent derivative were studied.•Interactions of derivative with predicted allosteric binding site (based on the result of the kinetic study) on AChE and BChE were studied using docking studies.•Good neuroprotective and anti-Aβ aggregation activities were shown for the potent compounds.