*3.1. Delivery of Neuroprotectants*

Early recanalization (thrombolysis) and neuroprotection are the two major steps for stroke patients [45]. Neuroprotection is an important strategy to protect the neurological damage from ischemic stroke. There are several approaches including reduced immune cell adhesion, blocking of proinflammatory cytokines, decreased lipid peroxidation, and decreased cell apoptosis. Many drugs, such as adenosine [46], have been developed and approved by the FDA to treat myocardial ischemia. However, they failed to be used in treating cerebral I/R injury [47] because they have the short plasma half-life time and lack of permeability to BBB. To address this issue, nanoparticle drug delivery systems have been developed to deliver drugs to cross BBB. The applications of nanoparticle-drug delivery systems have been summarized in Table 1.


**Table 1.** Studies of nanoparticle-based drug delivery in ischemic stroke.


#### **Table 1.** *Cont.*


#### **Table 1.** *Cont.*


\* The times represent the ischemic duration; (-) denotes that the information is not available in the studies.
