Crossing the Line: Technique could treat brain diseases

For the first time, scientists have selectively ferried a drug across the blood-brain barrier to treat a neurological disease in mice. The new method could eventually make new treatments possible for a wide range of brain disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease.

The walls of capillaries that carry blood into the brain control whether molecules larger than a few hundred atoms, such as antibodies and proteins, can pass into the spaces between neurons.