Release dynamics of tyrosine from dietary fiber psyllium based hydrogels for use in Parkinson’s disease

Innovative drug delivery in Parkinson’s disease (PD) has the potential to reduce or avoid many side effects of the traditional orally administered formulations of l-dopa. Keeping in view the therapeutic sensitivity of l-dopa and need for its sustained release, we have prepared the hydrogels based on dietary fiber psyllium and acrylamide (AAm)/methacrylamide (MAAm) by using N,N′-methylenebisacrylamide as crosslinker and ammonium persulfate as initiator. The in vitro release dynamics of model drug from these hydrogels has been studied for the evaluation of drug release mechanism. The values of the diffusion exponent in distilled water, pH 2.2 and pH 7.4 buffer were obtained (0.36, 0.26 and 0.62), (0.45, 0.36 and 0.60) and (0.35, 0.39 and 0.43) and late diffusion coefficient (DL × 10−4) were (0.52, 0.75 and 1.62), (0.71, 0.44 and 1.01) and (0.85, 0.97 and 0.93) respectively for the release of drug from hydrogels based on AAm, MAAm and AAm/MAAm. The release of l-tyrosine from acrylamide and methacrylamide matrix occurred through non-Fickian diffusion mechanism in pH 7.4 buffer solution.