Nasal spray gel directly delivers Parkinson's drugs to the brain
Getting drugs into the brain is no easy feat, but the nose is emerging as one of the most direct routes. Now, researchers in the UK have developed a hydrogel that can be administered as a nasal spray, lining the tissue and delivering a common Parkinson’s drug straight to the brain.
Parkinson’s disease is characterized by a deficiency of dopamine in the brain, so the most common treatment involves reducing the symptoms with drugs that boost dopamine levels. Levodopa, or L-DOPA, is one of the most commonly used of these, but when taken orally relatively low amounts of the drug actually make it to the brain. This is because much of it gets metabolized in the liver first, or filtered out by the blood-brain barrier.
Past studies have shown that drugs delivered through the nose can bypass these checkpoints on their way to the brain, with experimental nasal sprays in development for conditions such as depression, heroin overdoses or even peanut allergies. And now, researchers from York University and King’s College London have added Parkinson’s to the list.
The team developed a levodopa nasal spray that allowed the drug to pass into the fine blood vessels in the nasal cavity, where it’s fast-tracked to the brain. Since a liquid mist wouldn’t linger long enough for much of the drug to soak in, the researchers embedded levodopa into a hydrogel that coats the tissue.
