Researchers at McMaster University have developed a nasal spray that could revolutionize the way antipsychotic medication is delivered to the brain. This new approach cuts the dosage of drugs used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses by as much as three-quarters.
Conventional oral and injectable medications must pass through the body before they reach the brain, causing them to linger in the system and resulting in side effects. The nasal spray delivers the drug directly to the brain, raising its bioavailability and lowering side effects.
How the Spray Works
A team of researchers from McMaster University has created a nasal spray that bypasses the blood-brain barrier and delivers antipsychotic drugs directly to the brain. This delivery mechanism could be useful for patients with schizophrenia, who often have trouble sticking to a daily dose of medication.
The blood-brain barrier has traditionally prevented many medications from reaching the brain, leading to serious side effects. However, intranasal administration may raise the bioavailability of antipsychotic medications while reducing their adverse side effects.
As a result, intranasal drug delivery has been used to treat psychiatric conditions including schizophrenia and autism. Intranasal administration is more effective than oral or injected drug delivery because it can bypass the blood-brain barrier.
Intranasal drug delivery is based on the idea that the nose is a good place for antipsychotic medications to enter the brain because it contains a lot of nerve pathways. The nasal spray delivers the medicine to the nose, where it can then pass along the olfactory nerve and reach the brain.
This approach also allows the medication to be released more slowly, which is a major advantage over some other methods of delivering the drug. In tests with rats, the nasal spray was able to release a controlled dose of the antipsychotic drug PAOPA over three days after a single spray.
Another benefit of intranasal drug delivery is that it helps reduce the need for frequent re-administration, which can lead to relapses. This could help people with a variety of conditions adhere to their treatment plan and get the most out of their medication.
The researchers hope this new technology will lead to a breakthrough in the development of new drugs for schizophrenia. The condition affects more than 21 million people worldwide, imposing a heavy personal and public health cost.
The researchers believe that a nasal spray containing the hormone oxytocin could be an effective treatment for schizophrenia. Oxytocin is a hormone that stimulates social communication and makes people more sensitive to the feelings of others. This hormone has been shown to improve cognition and social functioning in a number of studies.
Symptoms
Hallucinations, or seeing and hearing things that are not real, is one of the most common symptoms for schizophrenia. Often, these experiences occur without anyone noticing, so it can be hard to tell if someone is suffering from schizophrenia.
Delusions, or strong beliefs that aren’t true, are also common for people with schizophrenia. Some of the most common delusions are persecutory (or paranoid) delusions, which are about being harmed or harassed by others. Other types of delusions include psychotic delusions, which are about things that aren’t actually true.
In addition to these common symptoms, some people with schizophrenia also experience less obvious and more severe ones called negative symptoms. These include a lack of interest in things and loss of motivation for typical daily activities.
These negative symptoms may last for a long time, and they can make it harder to live a normal life. They can also make it difficult to work or support yourself financially.
If you think someone you know has schizophrenia, it’s important to get them help as soon as possible. Early treatment increases the chance of successful treatment, which can help reduce the number of episodes of schizophrenia that happen.
A new type of nasal spray that delivers medication directly to the brain may help patients with schizophrenia more easily stick to a regular medication schedule. buy ketamine nasal spray can eliminate the need for patients to take antipsychotic medications orally or by injection. This can save them time and money, as well as avoid side effects associated with these methods of delivery, including weight gain, diabetes, drug-induced movement disorders and organ damage.
Another benefit of this type of spray is that it doesn’t clear out of the body as quickly, so patients don’t need to re-administer the drug as often. This can reduce the number of relapses, which can be particularly common with antipsychotic drugs.
While there is no cure for schizophrenia, there are treatments that can manage symptoms and help people lead more fulfilling lives. They can include medications, social support, and therapy. Contact your health care provider for more information about schizophrenia and other mental health conditions.
Side Effects
Antipsychotic medications are the first-choice treatment for schizophrenia, but they can have serious side effects and aren’t always as effective as people need them to be. Researchers are working on new ways to treat schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders that don’t have the side effects of antipsychotics.
One such new medication is called KarXT, which is made by Karuna Therapeutics. It’s a combination of two drugs: xanomeline and trospium. Both of these drugs stimulate a certain group of muscarinic receptors in your brain. These muscarinic receptors are located in parts of your brain that are involved in thinking and behavior. Stimulating these receptors may help reduce the symptoms of schizophrenia.
Using a nasal spray to deliver these medications is a good idea because it can bypass the body’s blood-brain barrier and deliver the drug directly to your brain. It can also increase the drug’s bioavailability and minimize its side effects.
The blood-brain barrier is a filter that blocks many substances from entering your brain. This protects your brain from dangerous toxins and bacteria, but it also makes it harder for medicines to reach the brain.
For example, most medications used to treat psychiatric illnesses can’t get through the barrier when you take them orally or through injections. This can make it difficult for patients to stick with their medication routines and can lead to severe relapses.
To overcome this obstacle, McMaster University researchers Todd Hoare and Ram Mishra teamed up with neuroscientist colleagues to develop a nasal spray that could get the drug into your brain directly. The spray uses carboxymethyl chitosan, a water-soluble polymer, and oxidized starch nanoparticles to form an intranasal hydrogel.
Once the drug is delivered through your nose, it can bypass the blood-brain barrier and enter your brain directly via the olfactory nerve. This direct route to the brain helps raise the drug’s bioavailability and reduce its side effects, according to a study published in the Journal of Controlled Release by Mishra and Hoare.
This method can potentially cut the dose of an antipsychotic drug by more than three quarters. It’s also expected to spare patients from some of the most common side effects and may allow them to reduce the frequency of required treatment. Ultimately, the spray could help improve quality of life for patients with schizophrenia and other mental health conditions.
Dosage
A nasal spray designed to deliver an antipsychotic drug directly to the brain may help raise its bioavailability and minimize side effects, according to a new study. This is an exciting breakthrough that could have a lasting impact on the treatment of schizophrenia.
Chemical engineer Todd Hoare and a group of neuroscientists at McMaster University have been developing a way to deliver drugs through the nose in a safe and effective manner. The nasal spray combines carboxymethyl chitosan, a water-soluble and mucoadhesive polymer with oxidized starch nanoparticles to create a gel that penetrates the mucus lining of the nose and slowly releases a controlled dose.
The researchers have found that the gel-based system works by raising the drug’s bioavailability and reducing its side effects while increasing its therapeutic efficacy in patients with schizophrenia. They say that the spray could be useful for people who are in a refractory phase of their illness, when many antipsychotic drugs do not work.
It’s estimated that over 21 million people worldwide suffer from schizophrenia and many don’t get the full range of mental health benefits that they need. This lack of effective treatments has imposed a heavy personal and public cost.
However, antipsychotic drugs, especially dopamine-targeting ones, can cause a range of negative side effects, including sleepiness, weight gain and abnormal motor movements. These can make it difficult for some patients to take them or worse, lead to relapse.
Another promising development is the use of an intranasal oxytocin spray to treat early psychosis and improve social cognition skills. The study was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in 52 people with early psychosis who received either oxytocin or placebo two times a day for 6 weeks along with social cognition training (SCT).
It’s believed that oxytocin, a natural hormone released in the body when we interact with others, can enhance cognitive functions such as attention and memory. It also has a positive effect on the brain’s ability to process emotions and social cues. This could have an impact on the development of mental health disorders such as schizophrenia, where many of these cognitive impairments are associated with social functioning.