Olfactory Drug Aerosol Delivery with Acoustic Radiation

Nose-to-brain (N2B) drug delivery is a new approach to neurological disorder therapy as medications can bypass the blood-brain barrier and directly enter the brain. However, the delivery efficiency to the olfactory region using the conventional delivery method is impractically low because of the region’s secluded position in a convoluted nasal cavity. In this study, the acoustic radiation force was explored as an N2B delivery alternative in a wide frequency range of 10–100,000 Hz at an increment of 50 Hz. Numerical simulations of the particle deposition in the olfactory region of four nasal configurations were performed using COMSOL. Frequency analysis of the nasal cavities revealed that eigenfrequencies were often associated with a specific region with narrow passages and some eigenfrequencies exhibited an amendable pressure field to the olfactory region. Transient particle tracking was conducted with an acoustic inlet at 1 Pa, and a frequency spectrum of 10–100,000 Hz was imposed on the airflow, which carried the particles with acoustic radiation forces. It was observed that by increasing the pulsating wave frequency at the nostrils, the olfactory delivery efficiency reached a maximum in the range 11–15 kHz and decreased after that. The correlation of the olfactory delivery efficiency and instantaneous values of other parameters such as acoustic velocity and pressure in the frequency domain was examined.