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Review
. 2014:2014:869269.
doi: 10.1155/2014/869269. Epub 2014 Jul 20.

Drug delivery systems, CNS protection, and the blood brain barrier

Ravi Kant Upadhyay  1
Affiliations
Review

Drug delivery systems, CNS protection, and the blood brain barrier

Ravi Kant Upadhyay. Biomed Res Int. 2014.

Abstract

Present review highlights various drug delivery systems used for delivery of pharmaceutical agents mainly antibiotics, antineoplastic agents, neuropeptides, and other therapeutic substances through the endothelial capillaries (BBB) for CNS therapeutics. In addition, the use of ultrasound in delivery of therapeutic agents/biomolecules such as proline rich peptides, prodrugs, radiopharmaceuticals, proteins, immunoglobulins, and chimeric peptides to the target sites in deep tissue locations inside tumor sites of brain has been explained. In addition, therapeutic applications of various types of nanoparticles such as chitosan based nanomers, dendrimers, carbon nanotubes, niosomes, beta cyclodextrin carriers, cholesterol mediated cationic solid lipid nanoparticles, colloidal drug carriers, liposomes, and micelles have been discussed with their recent advancements. Emphasis has been given on the need of physiological and therapeutic optimization of existing drug delivery methods and their carriers to deliver therapeutic amount of drug into the brain for treatment of various neurological diseases and disorders. Further, strong recommendations are being made to develop nanosized drug carriers/vehicles and noninvasive therapeutic alternatives of conventional methods for better therapeutics of CNS related diseases. Hence, there is an urgent need to design nontoxic biocompatible drugs and develop noninvasive delivery methods to check posttreatment clinical fatalities in neuropatients which occur due to existing highly toxic invasive drugs and treatment methods.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Showing important neurological problems which essentially need proper drug delivery for treatment.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Showing important routes of drug delivery for CNS therapeutics.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Showing presence of blood brain barrier at the blood capillary endothelium that obstructs drug delivery to CNS.
Figure 4
Figure 4
(a) Showing structures of different types of drug delivery vehicles, (b) a drug loaded nanoparticle.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Showing topical and transdermal drug delivery systems.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Showing different types of liposomes used for drug delivery to CNS.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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MeSH terms