| Popis: |
At the beginning of the first COVID-19 wave, it was believed that the life of the patients who had safely survived pulmonary complications caused by SARS-CoV-2 would soon return to normal. Today, we know that this is not for all patients the case. Unfortunately, for many patients, COVID-19 changed into long COVID – not a life-threatening condition such as the short period of the infection with the coronavirus but with the potential to considerably reduce the quality of life. Notably, long COVID manifests itself in major pathological alteration in the brain, besides other organs. It is unclear whether the alterations in the brain are reversible. Alterations can include but are not limited to cognitive impairment and substantial reduction of grey matter. These clinical findings represent an urgent challenge for the design of nanomedicines targeting the brain and the mode of their application. The challenge comprises a third aspect, which is of physical nature and is the key to a revolution in nanomedicine: the blood-brain barrier (BBB). Even if nanomedicine is effective in vitro, it remains therapeutically useless if it cannot cross the BBB, safeguarding that neither pathogens nor nanoparticles enter the best-protected organ in our body. Here, we present a theoretical model and discuss experimental results, which coherently indicate that it can transiently open the BBB by its mechanical excitation and/or via chemical modification induced by music. |
