Unfortunately, this protective feature also prevents us from getting drugs into the brain. Approximately 1 in 10,000 antibodies injected into patients actually makes it to the brain, with these cellular fighters trapped in the blood rather than escaping through cracks in the blood vessels into the brain.
Now, researchers have mapped out a new transit process to enable drugs to reach the brain using extracellular vesicles—tiny bubbles naturally produced by cells in our bodies.
Researchers at the University of Ottawa showed that extracellular vesicles find a way to squeeze through blood vessels into the brain, allowing them to deliver drugs there. As a next step, they wanted to find ways to improve the ability of antibodies in the brain to eliminate the pathological proteins that cause neurodegenerative diseases.