Construction of a new multifunctional insomnia drug delivery system

Insomnia is a severe sleep problem that people in the current society widely face. In clinic, zaleplon is a commonly used drug for insomnia treatment. However, short half-life, poor sleep maintenance effect and low oral utilization rate of zaleplon seriously limit its treatment outcome. Here, we report a nasal gel drug delivery system by using single-walled carbon nanotubes as carriers. Besides the certain neuroprotective effect of single-walled carbon nanotubes, zaleplon loaded on them can effectively improve the drug bioavailability by crossing the blood-brain barrier, appropriately prolonging its effective time and enhance the therapeutic effect. In addition, the carbomer-based gel can extend the residence time of the drug delivery system in the nasal cavity to further enhance absorption efficiency, and its ion responsiveness can prevent nasal obstruction from interfering with normal breathing after sleep. This system improves the shortcomings of zaleplon and increases the effectiveness of the treatment of insomnia by appropriately prolonging the duration of action of the drug. The design of this drug-delivery system provides a new idea for the safe and efficient delivery of insomnia drugs into the brain.