Page 347 - AWSAR 2.0

By and large, the story of mathematician John Nash Jr fighting with his own thoughts in the English movie ‘A Beautiful Mind’ still remains one of the major glimpses into the life of a schizophrenic patient. Dr Samir
Parikh, Director, Fortis National
Mental Health Program says
that most of cases in India go unrecognized. Schizophrenia
requires a lifelong treatment
and patients have seen an
improvement in the quality
of their life with medicines
and care rendered by family
members.
The currently available
treatment for schizophrenia
involves taking medication,
which can be a burden on
patients who in the long run stop
taking the medicines leading
to relapse of the symptoms. In
addition, the medicines available at present do not show sufficient concentration at the site of action, that is, the brain which may be due to the very thick line-of-control, the blood brain
barrier. In addition, other adverse reactions are also observed, which are the drawbacks of the current treatment. Based on these drawbacks, our team at Manipal College of Pharmaceutical
Sciences, attempted to develop a novel means of delivery of risperidone, which is the most popular drug for the treatment of schizophrenia by incorporating it into liposomes and later administering the same via nasal route.
We used liposomes which is a lipid-based carrier known to enhance the cellular uptake of the drugs loaded in it leading to better delivery of the drugs. Liposomes are < 1 micron phospholipid-based molecules, which can carry drugs into the tissues. They are more compatible with the
tissues due to their structure similarity with the cell membranes. Delivering drugs to brain directly via intranasal route of transportation bypasses the ‘line of control – blood brain
Fig. 1. Schematic representation of the overall
Ms. Reema Narayan || 323
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder, which affects a person’s ability to think clearly and thus impairs their behaviour and day-to-day activities. The person suffering from schizophrenia has thoughts or certain experiences which are far removed from reality and are often seen talking to imaginary people.