Drug Design and Development

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 characterized 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 carriers of molecules that are important for brain function. This builds an extensive protest for the treatment of central nervous system diseases compelling therapeutic levels of the 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.