Advancement in Liposomal Technology with Various Active Compounds for Neurodegenerative Disease Treatment

Neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s, dementia, and Parkinson’s, pose significant global health challenges, leading to cognitive decline, motor impairment, and reduced quality of life. While conventional therapies can alleviate symptoms, they do not provide a cure. Therefore, there remains a need for more effective treatment strategies that can enhance drug bioavailability and therapeutic outcomes. A major challenge in treating these diseases is the blood–brain–barrier (BBB), which restricts the passage of many central nervous system (CNS) active drugs, limiting their effectiveness. Intranasal drug delivery has emerged as a promising alternative, allowing drugs to bypass the BBB efficiently, ensuring rapid absorption while minimizing systemic side effects. Many CNS drugs suffer from poor solubility, stability, and permeability, reducing their therapeutic impact. Nanocarriers, specifically liposomes—nanoscale, lipid-based vesicles—offer a solution by protecting drugs from enzymatic degradation, enhancing absorption, and facilitating transport across the BBB. Liposomes provide advantages such as targeted drug delivery, controlled release, and improved bioavailability, making them ideal for CNS drug delivery via the nasal route. Our research focuses on developing and characterizing liposomal formulations for three CNS drugs, i.e., dopamine, vinpocetine, and donepezil, which suffer from low stability or bioavailability. By encapsulating these drugs in liposomes, we aim to enhance their solubility, stability, and BBB permeability, thereby improving therapeutic potential. We focus on the impact of liposome surface charge on critical factors such as mucoadhesion, drug release, and permeability, optimizing nasal applicability. We also evaluated the chemical and physical stability for long-term storage and clinical use. The results showed that we succeeded in developing robust, stable, and effective nasal liposomal drug delivery systems to improve treatment outcomes for neurodegenerative diseases. This research could lead to more efficient, non-invasive treatments, offering hope to millions worldwide.
Acknowledgement: Project No. TKP2021-EGA-32 was implemented with the support provided by the Ministry of Innovation and Technology of Hungary, financed under the TKP2021-EGA funding scheme.