To drive their growth, many tumors hijack nervous system signals, including those needed for brain plasticity.
Cancer cells hijack normal biological processes, allowing them to multiply. For example, tumors spur construction of new blood vessels, building themselves"highways" to supply nutrients.
"Since 2015, when we first published that neuronal activity actually drives the growth of cancer in multiple brain tumor types, there has been a very exciting explosion of studies on these interactions," said Michelle Monje, MD, PhD, a professor of neurology and neurological sciences and senior author of the newstudy, whose team's discoveries form the foundation of cancer neuroscience."This is clearly a major set of interactions crucial to tumor biology that we had missed.
Adjacent brain cells also signal to each other with proteins that cross the space between cells to trigger complex intracellular responses. Such responses include molecular signals that underlie the neural plasticity needed for learning and memory. "We looked at the electrophysiological recordings and seeing this increase was … I will never forget that. It was pretty incredible," Taylor said."What was so striking about that finding was that not only can the cells connect, they also dynamically respond to input from healthy brain cells. The tumor cell is not only plugging into the network, it's increasing its connection to that plug.
Stopping the worst gliomas, including DIPG, will require a mixture of tactics, from cancer neuroscience and from other oncology specialties, Monje said. Perhaps doctors can start treatment with neurological medications that slow the tumors' growth, then give immunotherapies -- such as specially engineered immune cells called CAR-T cells, which her team is also studying as a treatment for DIPG -- as a second line of attack.
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