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The blood–brain barrier represents an insurmountable obstacle for the therapy of central nervous system related diseases. Polymeric micelles have many desirable properties for brain targeting by oral delivery, but the stability and targeting efficiency needs to be improved. In this study, it was demonstrated that binary micelle system can compensate the drawbacks of mono system by preparing mixed micelles in combination with PEG-based copolymers. Here, we explored a brain targeting drug delivery system via facile approaches using P123 based mixed micelles in combination with a message guider from traditional Chinese medicine, borneol, for oral delivery. With higher drug-loading, improved stability, prolongedin vitrorelease profile, increased bioavailability and enhanced brain targeting effect was achieved after peroral delivery of the mixed micelles. More importantly, without extra structure modification for active targeting, it was demonstrated for the first time that oral delivery of vinpocetine loaded mixed micelles together with borneol is an effective way to increase drug concentration in the brain and the targeting efficiency is borneol dose dependent. Such a “simple but effective” modality may shed light on the potential use of polymeric micelles in combination with a message drug to achieve drug brain targeting or other targeting sites via oral delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]