18^th World Drug Delivery Summit

Drug Delivery through Blood-Brain Barrier (BBB)

The brain is shielded and segregated from the normal circulation by a highly adequate blood-brain barrier. This is characterised by relatively impermeable endothelial cells with tight junctions, enzymatic activity and active efflux transport systems. Therefore the blood-brain barrier is layout to allow discriminatory carrier of molecules that are important for brain function. This builds a extensive protest for the treatment of central nervous system diseases compelling therapeutic levels of drug to get into the brain. Some small lipophilic drugs diffuse across the blood-brain barrier- sufficiently well to be efficacious. However, many potentially useful drugs are excluded.