Osmotic Pump-based Drug-delivery for In Vivo Remyelination Research on the Central Nervous System.

Abstract

Demyelination has been identified in not only multiple sclerosis (MS), but also other central nervous system diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and autism. As evidence suggests that remyelination can effectively ameliorate the disease symptoms, there is an increasing focus on drug development to promote the myelin regeneration process. Thus, a region-selectable and result-reliable drug delivery technique is required to test the efficiency and specificity of these drugs in vivo. This protocol introduces the osmotic pump implant as a new drug delivery approach in the lysolecithin-induced demyelination mouse model. The osmotic pump is a small implantable device that can bypass the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and deliver drugs steadily and directly to specific areas of the mouse brain. It can also effectively improve the bioavailability of drugs such as peptides and proteins with a short half-life. Therefore, this method is of great value to the field of central nervous system myelin regeneration research.