Nose-to-Brain Drug Delivery Enabled by Nanocarriers

There continues to be a growing need for treatments of central nervous system diseases such as neurodegenerative disease. A significant obstacle to the treatment of central nervous system diseases is the blood-brain barrier. Over the last several decades, the intranasal route of delivery has been reported to provide a bypass of the blood-brain barrier, delivering drugs directly from the nose to the brain. In addition to the opportunities this route of delivery offers, nanocarrier delivery systems can further improve the targeting of drugs by this pathway, offering advantages over other formulation strategies such as sustained release and enzymatic protection. In this chapter the current status of nanocarriers for nose-to-brain delivery will be reviewed, including the proposed pathways for nanocarrier and drug transport to the brain, nanocarrier attributes which improve brain targeting, the directions intranasal nanocarrier research has focused in terms of disease treatments, as well as delivery device considerations for translation to human delivery. In addition to this review, essential methods for the development of nanocarrier systems for this delivery modality will be presented and discussed.