An interdisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has developed nanoparticles that can selectively bind to brain cells that mediate inflammation in Alzheimer's disease. The researchers found that both Alzheimer's disease and aging strongly affect the ability of nanoparticles to cross the blood-brain barrier – a network of blood vessels surrounding the brain that tightly regulate which molecules can enter the brain. The researchers injected the nanoparticles into both older and younger mice that either had Alzheimer's disease or were healthy. In the brains of Alzheimer's disease mice, they found high concentrations of nanoparticles regardless of age (although older Alzheimer's disease mice had stronger concentrations than younger ones) and a significant amount of nanoparticles in the brains of healthy older mice.
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