Selenium Nanoparticles as Therapeutic Agents in Neurodegenerative Diseases

Abstract

The Huntington’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease are major neurodegenerative diseases, which cause severe damage to neuron and affect the neurodegeneration function. The nanoparticles such as gold, copper and copper oxide, selenium, zirconium oxide, and silver nanoparticles are highly used in anticancer activities against lung, liver, breast, skin, and colon cancer, etc., and drug delivery systems. The nanoparticles are major drug carriers for delivering very sensitive and highly valuable drug to complicated diseases. Selenium is the important micronutrient of our body and selenium nanoparticles for the biomedical applications are very useful one for the biomedical community. Delivering the drugs across the blood–brain barrier is the complicated process and it needs very sensitive and nanosized particles for the drug delivery. In this context, the selenium nanoparticles play an important role in the application for neurodegenerative diseases. In this chapter, we explain the green synthesis of selenium nanoparticles using eco-friendly methods, their characterization using various analytical techniques and applications in the diagnosis and treatment of diverse diseases.