Advances of NIR Light Responsive Materials for Diagnosis and Treatment of Brain Diseases

Abstract Brain diseases pose a great threat to human health worldwide, thus it is of great importance to explore new materials for their diagnosis and therapy. Compared with the ultraviolet (UV) and visible light, near infrared (NIR) light has better biosafety, lower tissue auto‐fluorescence, and stronger penetration into skull. Hence, NIR light responsive materials have attracted great attention recently which can not only realize the high spatial resolution and signal‐to‐noise ratio imaging for diagnosis, but also achieve effective NIR light triggered treatment noninvasively. Besides, the brain lesions can be visualized clearly by NIR imaging, which can provide more accurate information for guiding treatments. Therefore, this work systematically summarizes the recent advances of NIR light responsive materials for diagnosis and treatment of brain diseases. Firstly, this work briefly reviews the pathological features of blood brain barrier (BBB) and the rational design of materials to target brain disease. Then, the emerging approaches for diagnosis and treatment of various brain diseases with NIR light responsive materials are introduced. Subsequently, the imaging‐guided therapies are elaborated, such as the fluorescence imaging guided surgery and sonodynamic therapy. Finally, some challenges and prospects on the design of NIR light responsive materials for precise diagnosis and therapy of brain diseases are put forward.