Nanotechnology in Brain Targeting

Abstract

Nanotechnology offers a vision for a ‘smart’ drug approach involving the design, synthesis, and characterization of materials and devices that have a functional association in nanometer scale. One area in which nanotechnology may have a significant clinical impact in neuroscience is the selective transport and delivery of drugs and other small molecules across the strictest barrier in vivo, the blood brain barrier (BBB). Therefore, various strategies have been proposed to improve the delivery of different antineoplastic drugs, oligonucleotides, genes, and magnetic resonance imaging contrast agents to this tissue. This review deals in brief about the status of the BBB, different pathologies of brain like neurodegenerative, cerebrovascular and inflammatory diseases. The first part of this article aims to review the strategies developed to circumvent the BBB and deliver drugs into the brain. The use of nanotechnology and advancements are discussed especially in the crucial part of the review manifesting their potentiality as non-invasive technique which overcomes the blood-brain barrier limiting characteristics in the delivery of drugs with the possibility to target specific brain tissue decreasing peripheral toxicity.