New Perspectives of Nanoneuroprotection, Nanoneuropharmacology and Nanoneurotoxicity

Recent advancement in nanomedicine suggests that nano drug delivery using nanoformulation enhances neurotherapeutic values of drugs or neurodiagnostic tools for superior effects than the conventional drugs or the parent compounds. This indicates a bright future for nanomedicine in treating neurological diseases in clinics. However, effects of nanoparticles per se in inducing neurotoxicology, if any is still being largely ignored. The main aim of nanomedicine is to enhance the drug availability within the central nervous system (CNS) for greater therapeutic successes. However, once the drug together with nanoparticles enters into the CNS compartments, the fate of nanomaterial within the brain microenvironment is largely remained unknown. Thus, to achieve greater success in nanomedicine our knowledge in expanding our understanding of nanoneurotoxicology in details is the need of the hour. In addition, neurological diseases are often associated with several co-morbidity factors, e.g., stress, trauma, hypertension or diabetes. These co-morbidity factors tremendously influence the neurotherapeutic potentials of conventional drugs. Thus, this is utmost necessary to develop nanomedicine keeping these factors in mind. Recent research in our laboratory demonstrated that engineered nanoparticles from metals used for nanodrug delivery significantly affected the CNS functions in healthy animals. These adverse reactions of nanoparticles are further potentiated in animals associated with heat stress, diabetes, trauma or hypertension. These effects of nanomaterials were dependent on their composition and the doses used. Thus, drugs delivered using TiO2 nanowired enhanced the neurotherapeutic potential of the parent compounds following CNS injuries in healthy animals. However, almost double doses of nanodrug delivery are needed to achieve comparable neuroprotection in animals associated with anyone of the above co-morbidity factors. Taken together, it appears that while exploring new nanodrug formulations for neurotherapeutic purposes, co-morbidly factors and composition of nanoparticles require great attention. Furthermore, neurotoxicity caused by nanoparticles per se should be examined in greater details before using them for nanodrug delivery in patients