Modified biopolymer-based systems for drug delivery to the brain

Abstract

There are various biological barriers in the human brain, such as the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and the blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier. In particular, the BBB protects the central nervous system, provides nutrition, maintains homeostasis, and enables communication via serum between the brain and the rest of the body. The complicated nature of BBB exhibits a significant challenge to the drug delivery in the brain, which warrants the development of new techniques to accomplish the enhanced drug delivery in the brain either invasively or noninvasively. Recently, various biopolymers and their derivatives have been explored exhaustively for efficient drug delivery to the brain. Herein, the works of literature on various invasive methods such as osmotic shock, ultrasound, direct injection, Gliadel wafer, and noninvasive methods like extracellular vesicles, viral vectors, and nanoplatforms have been discussed. Furthermore, the applications of several biopolymer-based systems for the targeted brain drug delivery have been reviewed. © 2021 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.