Disease mechanisms and translational barriers guide nanocarrier design for nose to brain delivery in Alzheimer’s disease

Description

Chenqi Liao, Danyang Sun, and Xiong Wang review, in 2026, delivering Alzheimer's medicines up the nose to reach the brain. Many candidate drugs never reach useful levels in the brain. They also cause body-wide side effects. The nose offers smell-nerve and trigeminal routes into the head. These partly bypass the blood-brain barrier, especially when drugs ride in engineered nanocarriers.

The review sorts many cargoes. They range from repurposed small molecules and natural products to proteins and nucleic acids. Platforms range from lipid particles and polymer nanoparticles to gels and delivery devices. Design dials include particle size, surface charge, mucus interaction, and targeting decorations. Translation stalls on species differences in nasal anatomy, tiny dose volumes, device variability, thin human data, and manufacturing and safety hurdles, which the authors catalogue frankly.

Catalog record

Source: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/PMC13407831