blood-brain barrier
English
[edit]
Noun
[edit]blood-brain barrier (plural blood-brain barriers)
- (anatomy) A structure in the central nervous system (CNS) that keeps various substances found in the bloodstream out of the brain while allowing in the substances essential to metabolic function, e.g. oxygen.
- 2010, Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies, Fourth Estate (2011), page 147:
- The brain and spinal cord are insulated by a tight cellular seal called the blood-brain barrier that prevents foreign chemicals from easily getting into the brain.
- 2018 January 18, Jürgen Götz, “Why it’s so hard to treat dementia”, in CNN[1]:
- It’s estimated only 0.1% of antibodies circulating in the bloodstream enter the brain – this also includes the therapeutic antibodies currently used in clinical trials. An approach my team is taking is to use ultrasound to temporarily open the blood-brain barrier, which increases the uptake of Alzheimer’s drugs or antibody fragments.
Synonyms
[edit]- hematoencephalic barrier (rare)
- BBB
Holonyms
[edit]Translations
[edit]structure in the central nervous system
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