Tumor necrosis factor and drug delivery in the blood-brain barrier

The blood-brain barrier, as its name implies, limits and controls the exchange of drugs and regulatory substances between the brain and the peripheral blood. However, when the brain is damaged, the blood-brain barrier functions quite differently. Drug delivery across the blood-brain barrier in the damaged brain is currently poorly understood. Furthermore, studies have demonstrated a complex role for the transport and permeability across the blood-brain barrier of tumor necrosis factor-α, a cytokine released in response to brain injury. Understanding mechanisms and factors that regulate the permeability of the blood-brain barrier under normal conditions and also during injury could contribute significantly to the development of new therapeutic approaches for improving the bioavailability of drugs to the brain. Investigations of the blood-brain barrier create a dynamic field of study that has been largely neglected.