The role of lipid nanoparticles and its surface modification in reaching the brain

Nanomedicine refers to field of science that uses nanotechnology for clinical operations. The use of nanoparticles (NPs) has specially been successful due to their structure. For example, NPs have the ability to cross biological barriers which boosts their effectiveness towards complicated drug delivery problems. This permeability allows NPs to reach biological targets such as brain cells, which would have been impossible by conventional drugs. Due to their effectiveness in this area, NPs have now been prioritized from simply being experimental tests compounds to be used as a workable solution for neurodegenerative disease (ND). NDs, such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease are usually correlated with neuronal death, or in other words, the continuous structural and functional neuronal loss.

In common ND treatment strategies, one of the hardest obstruction to overcome is low penetration of the drug through the central nervous system (CNS). One of the reasons for this problem is the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB) and Blood Cerebrospinal Fluid Barrier (BCSFB) which protect the brain from invading and unwanted substances. The barriers carry out their function with the help of multispecific transport proteins and detoxifying enzymes. Using nanoparticles opens up many possibilities to counter such obstacles in the NDs treatment as they are proven to effectively deliver drugs to the CNS. The research focuses on the modification of lipid nanoparticles for brain targeting to increase drug efficiency and ability to deliver different kinds of drugs.

In conclusion, it has been difficult to establish which lipid nanoparticle, based on previous tests, was best for ND treatment since the administration route or animal models for each test were different. For the time being, researchers suggest that additional studies and tests are needed to propel research on CNS based drug delivery towards successful brain cell targeting.

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