Peptide-based brain distribution improvement strategies for nano delivery systems in CNS diseases treatment

Central nervous system disorders constitute a major global public health burden, contributing substantially to morbidity and mortality. Advances in elucidating their underlying pathogenesis have facilitated the approval of an increasing number of proprietary drugs for clinical management of neurological conditions. A critical challenge in drug delivery lies in achieving appropriate tissue distribution, particularly within the brain, where effective therapeutic intervention requires traversing the blood-brain barrier and precisely targeting localized regions. Nanodelivery systems have emerged as a promising approach in biomedicine to address these challenges. Among these, peptides—characterized by their high specificity and relatively small size—are extensively employed to functionalize nanocarriers, thereby enhancing targeted tissue distribution. The conjugation of diverse functional peptides onto heterogeneous nanoscale carriers enables precise, efficient, and multidimensional targeting. This review highlights several representative neurological diseases and systematically discusses strategies for peptide-based functionalization of nanocarriers tailored to these pathological contexts.