ABSTRACT
Many central nervous system (CNS) diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) affect deep brain regions, which hinders their effective treatment. Magnetic drug targeting (MDT) shows high potential in effectively delivering drug to a targeted disease site by applying an electromagnetic force. To achieve a successful scheme for MDT in the brain, we proposed a novel electromagnetic-based actuation and monitoring system. First, a novel electromagnetic actuation scheme was developed and studied through simulation and experiments. A computational platform has been developed to include the aggregation effects, and a magnetic particle imagining has been designed for real-time monitoring and guidance. Then, we analyzed the in vivo uptake in mice experimentally to find the best condition for blood–brain barrier (BBB) crossing and drug targeting in brain. We have demonstrated that magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) can cross the normal BBB in mice and reach the deep brain region when subjected to external electromagnetic fields. These results, using 350-nm fluorescent carboxyl magnetic nanoparticles, illustrate a high reaching rate to the brain and establish an effective strategy for AD treatment with MNPs drug carrier through the application of an external electromagnetic field.
