Nanomedicine as a non-invasive strategy for drug delivery across the blood brain barrier

The blood brain barrier (BBB) is a major obstacle to drug delivery for diseases of the central nervous system (CNS). This brief review highlights the current invasive and non-invasive technologies available to address this problem. In particular, nanomedicine has shown much promise as a non-invasive strategy due to its drug loading capabilities, ease of targeting to the BBB, and small size. The versatility of this technology in terms of type of drug and imaging agent, carrier material, and targeting mechanism is highlighted in this review. The recent inclusion of imaging agents in the nanocarriers has important consequences for the field of theranostics. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.