Abstract

Many central nervous system (CNS) diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), affect the deep brain region, which hinders their effective treatment. The hippocampus, a deep brain area critical for learning and memory, is especially vulnerable to damage during early stages of AD. Magnetic drug targeting has shown high potential in delivering drugs to a targeted disease site effectively by applying a strong electromagnetic force. This study illustrates a nanotechnology-based scheme for delivering magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) to the deep brain region. First, we developed a mathematical model and a molecular dynamic simulation to analyze membrane crossing, and to study the effects of particle size, aggregation, and crossing velocities. Then, using in vitro experiments, we studied effective parameters in aggregation. We have also studied the process and environmental parameters. We have demonstrated that aggregation size can be controlled when particles are subjected to external electromagnetic fields. Our simulations and experimental studies can be used for capturing MNPs in brain, the transport of particles across the intact BBB and deep region targeting. These results are in line with previous in vivo studies and establish an effective strategy for deep brain region targeting with drug loaded MNPs through the application of an external electromagnetic field.

Highlights

  • Alzheimer’s disease (AD) continues to be a growing public health concern

  • Aggregation, and velocity of crossing in the molecular dynamics simulations

  • Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) have been the subject of increasing interest in numerous research activities, in particular for advanced medical diagnostics and therapy [42,43,44,45,46]. Due to their size, which is comparable to biological objects, magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) pave the way for innovative medical applications by combining biology and magnetism

Read more

Summary

Introduction

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) continues to be a growing public health concern. It is estimated that there will be over 115 million new worldwide cases of AD within the 40 years, resulting in an overwhelming health and economic burden on society [1].The cases where AD was determined as the cause of death have increased by 68% between2000 and 2010 [2]. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) continues to be a growing public health concern. The cases where AD was determined as the cause of death have increased by 68% between. Given the major public health priority of AD, the Alzheimer’s Association released the National Alzheimer’s Plan, From Act to Action, outlining a national strategy to address AD research, care, and services with the specific goal of finding effective ways to prevent and treat the disease by 2025. AD is characterized by progressive cognitive dysfunction often beginning with an early disturbance of episodic memory and leading to absolute functional impairment. The apparent pathological processes caused by AD include misprocessing of fibrillar amyloid leading to oligomerization, the deposition of amyloid plaque causing a disruption of neural network activity, a loss of synaptic function, and eventual neuronal death [3,4]. As AD patients are often resistant to pharmacotherapy, alternative therapeutic strategies are imperative

Methods
Results
Discussion
Conclusion
Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call