ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a general description of neurological disorders and approaches for their treatment with an emphasis on polysaccharide nanocomposites. Nanoparticulate carrier systems have been assessed for their potential for delivering therapeutics or biomolecules to the central nervous systems (CNS). Nutrition also plays an important role in CNS disorders. In intra-cerebroventricular infusion technique, the injection of therapeutics straight into cerebral lateral ventricles causes delivery of materials into the CNS through the Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Invasive methods involve injecting or infusing the therapeutic drug molecules directly into the brain, the cerebro-ventricles or CSF or intranasal cavity. The choice of transport mechanism across the blood brain barrier for nanoparticles is mostly dependent on its physicochemical properties. Due to advancements in the fields of material science and nanoengineering, biocompatible nanocomposites such as nanoparticles, nanocapsules, and conjugates have been developed for the CNS delivery of biomolecules. The mechanism of nanoparticle-based molecule transport into the CNS has been shown to be mostly receptor-mediated transcytosis.
