(Michael Irving/ New Atlas) — 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. (…)