A Review on Chitosan in Drug Delivery for Treatment of Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders.

Neurological diseases are known as global health problems with a growing number of patients annually. Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease as well as spinal cord injury, hypoxic ischemia injury, epilepsy, depression and etc., are some examples of neurological diseases. One of the main problems in the treatment of these diseases is the delivery of drugs across the blood-brain barrier (BBB). These days, researchers have tended to find non-invasive and non-toxic strategies for solving this problem. As a non-toxic, safe, and potential agent, chitosan has attracted attention for use in drug delivery systems. Recently, numerous studies have been designed to develop drug delivery systems by using chitosan to treat various neurological diseases. In this paper, the latest developments of chitosan and its derivatives utilization in the drug delivery systems for the treatment of different neurological and psychiatric diseases were reviewed.