BRAIN-SPECIFIC DRUG DELIVERY: A REVIEW

Chavan Pallavi Jayram*, Dr. Jadhav Shivraj

The brain is the most crucial organ in the human body, and any functional impairment or degeneration can lead to devastating consequences. The blood-brain barrier (BBB) acts as a hurdle for neurologists to deliver therapeutic agents into the central nervous system (CNS). Adding to the complexity, many CNS disorder-predictive animal models fail to reproduce reliable disease symptoms in human body, thereby failing the success of drug discovery. Despite multiple challenges in drug delivery for treatment of neurological disorders, improvement in drug delivery systems has mainly come from developing innovative drug delivery technologies and biomaterials with nanotechnology. These systems not only overcome the obstacles for CNS drug delivery but also serve as active and passive targeted delivery strategies for enhanced brain specificity. Though these new methods hold promise, not many of them have been translated effectively to human clinical studies. Combination therapies or drug/device hybrid formulations may offer solutions to deliver specific drug combinations in order to potentiate the beneficial outcome. However, these innovations often come with a price, and drug delivery for neurological disorders is still one of the greatest challenges faced by drug developers today. The brain is one of the most complicated organs in the body and is exceedingly sensitive to exogenous materials. The BBB is composed of brain endothelium and protects the brain from outside particulates or microbial infection. The most effective way to treat neurological diseases lies in delivering drugs to the brain. Currently, brain delivery methods include chemical-based brain-specific drug delivery approaches: nanoparticles, liposomes, dendrimers, exosomes, receptor-mediated targeting, and intranasal delivery. However, their low solubility, suboptimal targeting, and biological barriers lead to low efficacy. The areas of nanotechnology, biotechnology, and molecular engineering are rapidly evolving. There is a myriad of ongoing research on developing innovative strategies and advanced brain permeable drug compounds. Gene delivery systems and RNA therapeutics have shown great efficacy in threating. The scope of this review extends from fundamental BBB biology to emerging translational technologies, providing a comprehensive overview of current advancements and future prospects in brain-specific drug delivery for improved treatment of neurological disorders.