Natural ingredient for advanced neurocosmetics

They seem to have the ability to easily change the physiological properties of the skin’s corneocytes and lipid lamellae, contemporary modulating the intercellular signal transduction, when formulated by the use of Chitin Nanofibrils (CN). These mechanisms of action seem to be particularly effective when CN, a natural and skin-friendly ingredient (characterised by electropositive charges) is utilised to produce block-co-polymer nanoparticles, via the use of an electronegative polymer, such as hyaluronic acid. The supposed mechanisms of action are reported and discussed in this paper.

 While the skin is the largest organ of human body, the brain is the most important one. The skin consists of billions of cells covering our body protecting it from all the environmental aggressions, as well as billions of nerve cells that defend the brain as it is constantly under attack from pollutants, internal toxicity and diet-related nutrient deficiencies.1–3 However, the skin and brain are both interconnected by nets of immune and endocrine cells, working at short and long distances via the activity of billions of different peptide-signals.4,5 Cellular protein-messages form, in fact, a complex network of gene interactions involving multiple signal transduction pathways, necessary to regulate all the human body’s activities. Thus, protein homeostasis is defined as the set of transcriptional, translational, and post translational processes, including folding, trafficking, localisation, and degradation, which maintain the correct amount, distribution, and structure of proteins within a cell. Mounting evidence suggests, in fact, that accumulation of damaged proteins and lesions at level of DNA may cause structural changes, which prevent gene transcription and induce harmful mutations in the cells’ genome. These seem to be the major mechanisms by which homeostasis declines during ageing6 and the reason why in the last few years the so-called neurocosmetics have emerged.7–11 They are based on and formulated by the NICE (Nervous, Immune, Cutaneous, and Endocrine systems) and the TCM approach (Traditional Chinese Medicine), both connected to each other by different nets of cells, coming from different physiological systems, previously reported (Fig. 1). But what does neurocosmetics mean? They are innovative cosmeceuticals which show a controlled penetration through the skin at the level of the different skin layers.15–17

Cell mitosis and apoptosis