Developing new neuropharmaceuticals presents formidable economic, scientific
and medical challenges mainly due to the complex nature of the central nervous system
(CNS), in particular the blood-brain barrier (BBB). The constituents of the BBB and its drug
efflux system form some kind of a boundary which prevents the entry of potent
neurotherapeutics from entering the brain thus leading to treatment inefficiency for various
CNS diseases. Conventional neurotherapeutic interventions for major disease conditions
include among others, ablative limbic system surgeries, vagus nerve stimulation, transcranial
magnetic stimulation and deep brain stimulation. These interventions are however somehow
invasive. The progress so far made in the area of interventional neurology has greatly
widened the scope of viable pharmaceutical drug delivery systems for which biopolymers
may play a substantial role. The major aim is to improve specificity in drug delivery (e.g.
through drug targeting) and to avoid or reduce the adverse effects imposed by the
conventional neurotherapeutic interventions. This Chapter therefore seeks to provide a
detailed discussion of the potential application of biopolymers in neurotherapeutic
interventions citing most the: i) strategies for neurotherapeutic interventions (including
biopolymer gene-based drug delivery, bioactive release from nerve conduits, nonviral gene
delivery vectors, molecular imaging as a novel technique for biopolymer-based
neurotherapeutic intervention); and ii) biopolymers used in neurotherapeutic interventions
(including biopolymeric vehicles, biopolymer scaffolds, multiple polymer-based layers,
polysaccharide-based biopolymers, protein-mimicked polypeptides and protein-based
biopolymers). Finally, this Chapter seeks to provide a detailed description about the future
prospects for biopolymer-based neurotherapeutic interventions.
Keywords: Biopolymers, biopolymer scaffolds, biopolymeric vehicles, bloodbrain
barrier, drug delivery, drug targeting, gene delivery, molecular imaging,
nerve conduits, neurotherapeutic interventions.
