Recent Advances in Nanocrystals Heralding Greater Potential in Brain Delivery

Abstract

conducted in order to develop preventive and therapeutic treatment modalities for brain-related disorders, the complications in brain delivery exist mostly due to the presence of the blood-brain barrier (BBB). Nanotechnology offers a promising platform for brain drug delivery for the management of various disorders. Nanotechnology tools in pharmaceutical applications have the potential to revolutionize the whole research and development venture concerning to drug delivery. Various nanotechnology-based strategies including polymeric nanoparticles, nanocrystals (NCs), liposomes, dendrimers, and quantum dots are the recent area of thorough research in brain drug delivery. Therapeutic, as well as diagnostic potentials of these nanosystems, are being explored for brain-related disorders.Drug NCs are particles fabricated using the pure solid drug with content up to 100%; they are often stabilized by polymeric steric stabilizers or surfactants. In early 1990, NCs were designed, and after the year 2000, the first product of NCs was marketed. Targeted drug delivery to the desired site can further be achieved with the surface functionalization of NCs. The high surface-to-volume ratio of NCs is the reason for the greater interaction of NCs with the cells/ tissue surface which ultimately improves the bioavailability of the drug. Relatively convenient methods of preparation and easy scale-up of NCs are other factors that highlight NCs as the most suitable nanosystems for the delivery of drugs.This review is particularly focused on the NCs-based drug delivery approaches to the brain for the management of a variety of brain-related disorders. Along with NCs, other nanosystems are briefly described. The recent developments in the area specified hereby along with the various challenges associated with brain delivery of drugs and the improvements that can be observed with the application of NCs in brain delivery along with the strategic designing of NCs so as to overcome the barriers in brain delivery of NCs are extensively discussed in this review. Blood-Brain Barrier: A Major ChallengeThe BBB is a key challenge for NCs because it largely hinders the targeted brain delivery of therapeutic moieties. The number of drug delivery systems fail to deliver drug molecules due to About 90% of natural/synthetic origin new drugs under the discovery process are facing problems related to poor aqueous solubility. Nanotechnologymediated approaches are proven to be effective in the development of such drug molecules. Nanocrystals (NCs) are the pure solid crystalline particulates with a mean diameter smaller than 1 µm and are primarily comprised of only the drug along with the stabilizers. NCs technology has proven to be a potential strategy to enhance the solubility and the therapeutic efficacy of BCS class IV and class II drugs. Such potential of NCs offers new prospects for advancement in targeted brain delivery in various disorders. The main hurdle for the delivery of the drug is blood brain barrier (BBB) which protects central nervous syste...

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