Can the Nasal Cavity Help Tackle COVID-19?

Despite the progress made in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, it still poses dramatic challenges for scientists around the world. Various approaches are applied, including repurposed medications and alternative routes for administration. Several vaccines have been approved, and many more are under clinical and preclinical investigation. This review aims to systemize the available information and to outline the key therapeutic strategies for COVID-19, based on the nasal route of administration.

Brain Targeting Through Intranasal Route: An Overview

Brain targeting has always been challenging due to the presence of physiological barriers by Changing the integrity of these barriers, so as to allow the toxic substances, bacteria and viruses into the brain, Which may severely damage the central nervous system .This problem can be reduced by delivering drugs through the intra nasal route, which by passes the blood brain barrier and reaches into the brain. Nasal route is a non-invasive type, widely used for the local treatment as well as used for systemic therapy as drug delivery directly goes in to systemic circulation. Nasal route provides good absorption of small molecules compared to that of large molecules, absorption of small molecules and large molecules can be increased by absorption promoters. Different drug delivery devices are developed for nasal administration like liquids, semi-solid and solid formulation are consider to deliver the drugs to treat most of the CNS diseases (i.e. Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s disease) because it requires specific targeting of drugs to the brain. This review highlighted the challenges, approaches for brain targeting and various drug delivery systems developed with different drugs targeting to brain through nasal administration.

Solid lipid nanoparticles: Influence of composition, fabrication methods and problems, in vitro drug release and intranasal administration provide to access olfactory bulb pathway for SLNs

Background: Solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN) have drawn increasing interest in recent years. These nanoparticles are formed from stable or solid lipid mixtures and then stabilized by emulsifiers. As nanoparticles, colloidal particles running in size somewhere in the 10 to 1000 nm range are known. SLN provides fascinating properties, such as minimal scale, massive surface area, high medication piling, correspondence of stages at the interface, and is interested in their ability to enhance drug execution. Main text: This paper provides a description of the choice of ingredients, the effect of lipids and their structure on the formulation, and the various methods of processing SLN. We explain the characteristics of SLN stability and the possibilities of SLN stabilization by lyophilization in this article. The relation between drug absorption and the complexity of SLN dispersions, which involves the existence of other colloidal structures and the physical state of the lipid, is uncommonly considered. We define the possible problems of SLN preparation and performance on the basis of characterization. First, the nasal route was known to accomplish the avoidance of first-pass hepatic metabolism in order to maximize absolute bioavailability, and secondly, the immediate nose-to-brain pathway to enhance the delivery of brain medicines. SLNs have been designated to increase drug permeability through the blood-brain barrier as a drug delivery device (BBB). Conclusion: To sum up, this article gives insight SLNs a colloidal drug carrier places together the compensations of polymeric nanoparticles, SLNs have numerous benefits such as easy incorporation of lipid and lipophilic as well as hydrophilic drugs, suitable physical stability, and available at low cost and easy to manufacture. The nasal route was accepted to exploit first its prevention of the hepatic first-pass metabolism to increase the absolute bioavailability, and second, the direct nose-to-brain pathway to enhance the brain drug delivery. SLNs were chosen as a drug delivery system to improve drug permeability across the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and consequently its brain delivery.

Osthole-Loaded Nanoemulsion Enhances Brain Target in the Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease via Intranasal Administration

Osthole (OST) is a natural coumarin compound that exerts multiple pharmacologic effects. However, the poor water solubility and the low oral absorption of OST limit its clinical application for the treatment of neurologic diseases. A suitable preparation needs to be tailored to evade these unfavourable properties of OST. In this study, an OST nanoemulsion (OST-NE) was fabricated according to the pseudoternary phase diagram method, which was generally used to optimize the prescription in light of the solubility of OST in surfactants and cosurfactants. The final composition of OST-NE was 3.6% of ethyl oleate as oil phase, 11.4% of the surfactant (polyethylene glycol ester of 15-hydroxystearic acid: polyoxyethylene 35 castor oil = 1 : 1 ), 3% of polyethylene glycol 400 as cosurfactant, and 82% of the aqueous phase. The pharmacokinetic study of OST-NE showed that the brain-targeting coefficient of OST was larger by the nasal route than that by the intravenous route. Moreover, OST-NE inhibited cell death, decreased the apoptosis-related proteins (Bax and caspase-3), and enhanced the activity of antioxidant enzymes (superoxide dismutase and glutathione) in L-glutamate-induced SH-SY5Y cells. OST-NE improved the spatial memory ability, increased the acetylcholine content in the cerebral cortex, and decreased the activity of acetylcholinesterase in the hippocampus of Alzheimer’s disease model mice. In conclusion, this study indicates that the bioavailability of OST was improved by using the OST-NE via the nasal route. A low dose of OST-NE maintained the neuroprotective effects of OST, such as inhibiting apoptosis and oxidative stress and regulating the cholinergic system. Therefore, OST-NE can be used as a possible alternative to improve its bioavailability in the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.

A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON GHREYA VAMAKA YOGA

The most important and widely used emetic is ‘Madanaphala yoga’ administered orally. While further elaborating the Vamana Karma classics also mentions that the persons who are reluctant to take medicine orally can be made to emit by giving the medicine as an errhine. With this classical background, the present study made an attempt to understand the olfactory route of medicine administration to induce Vamana against the oral route. Madanaphala (Randia Dumatorum) seed powder sprinkled over lotus and rose flow-er were used as Ghreya Vamaka Yoga in comparison with Madanaphala Yoga administered orally. Objec-tives: To evaluate the efficacy of Ghreya Yoga in inducing Vamana through Nasal Route. To evaluate the Olfaction effect through Rose medium, in comparison with Lotus medium. To evaluate the efficacy of Na-sal route as against the Oral route. Methods: A Comparative clinical study done on 45 subjects of both sexes, between the age group of 21-50years who were randomly assigned into 3 groups namely- Group-A, Group-B and Group-C. Vamana karma with Ghreya Madanaphala Pippali Churna sprinkled on lotus flower, rose flower and Madanaphala pippali yoga administered orally. The Vamana karma was done in the following order: Purva karma, Pradhana karma & Paschat karma. After the completion of the thera-py, the results were assessed by comparing the data collected during the therapy. Result: Nasal route of administration of Vamaka yoga also works efficiently, Ghreya yoga worked in par with oral yoga & Madanaphala Pippali Churna sprinkled over lotus and rose produced same effect in inducing Vamana.