To address this problem, Nathan McDannold, HMS associate professor of radiology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and first author on the paper, and Margaret Livingstone, HMS professor of neurobiology, introduced a microbubble contrast agent into the circulatory system of nonhuman primates. Large molecules like chemotherapy agents and antibiotics cannot easily permeate the BBB, making it one of the primary obstacles for treating diseases of the brain. The brain is protected from most toxins and bacterial infections by the blood-brain barrier (BBB), a physical separation between the brain and the circulatory system which normally only permits small, essential molecules like oxygen and glucose through. Their results, which were published online in the journal Cancer Research, support clinical testing of this new application. Using an FDA approved contrasting agent containing tiny gas-filled microbubbles, coupled with an ultrasound platform that targeted precise locations in the brains of nonhuman primates, researchers from Harvard Medical School showed that repeated treatments temporarily opened the blood-brain barrier while causing no structural or functional damage. This approach may open the way for new drug delivery strategies for diseases such as brain cancers and Alzheimer’s, conditions typically not amenable to more conventional treatments. Researchers used a noninvasive, focused ultrasound device to temporarily disrupt the blood-brain barrier and target discrete regions of the brain. Harvard COVID-19 Information: Keep Harvard Healthy.Celebrating 50 Years of Diversity and Inclusion.Research Departments, Centers, Initiatives and more.Finally, one particular area that is often neglected in brain drug delivery is the influence of aging on the BBB, which is captured in this review based on the limited studies in the literature.Īctively targeted delivery aging disease conditions permeable blood-brain barrier. Current non-nanoparticle strategies are also reviewed, such as delivery of drugs through the permeable BBB under pathological conditions and using non-invasive techniques to enhance brain drug uptake. After an initial overview of the BBB structure and function in both healthy and pathological conditions, this review re-visits, according to recent publications, some questions that are controversial, such as whether nanoparticles by themselves could cross the BBB and whether drugs are specifically transferred to the brain by actively targeted nanoparticles. It is hoped that this review could inspire readers to discover possible approaches to deliver drugs into the brain. The objective of this review is to provide a broad overview on current strategies for brain drug delivery and related subjects from the past five years. Under certain pathological conditions of diseases such as stroke, diabetes, seizures, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer disease, the BBB is disrupted. The BBB in healthy brain is a diffusion barrier essential for protecting normal brain function by impeding most compounds from transiting from the blood to the brain only small molecules can cross the BBB. The blood-brain barrier (BBB) has been a great hurdle for brain drug delivery.
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