Hormone shows promise in reversing Alzheimer's disease, other dementias, and stroke

EurekAlert
Contact: Nancy Solomon

SLU researchers find strategy to get it past vigilant blood-brain barrier

ST. LOUIS -- Saint Louis University researchers have identified a novel way of getting a potential treatment for Alzheimer's disease, other dementias, and stroke into the brain where it can do its work.
"We found a unique approach for delivering drugs to the brain," says William A. Banks, M.D., professor of geriatrics and pharmacological and physiological science at Saint Louis University. "We're turning off the guardian that's keeping the drugs out of the brain."
The brain is protected by the blood-brain barrier (BBB), a gate-keeping system of cells that lets in nutrients and keeps out foreign substances. The blood-brain barrier passes no judgment on which foreign substances are trying to get into the brain to treat diseases and which are trying to do harm, so it blocks them without discrimination.
"The problem in treating a lot of diseases