Research
The Cancer Neuroscience Program is leading innovative research that connects cancer with brain and nervous system health. We now know the nervous system plays a much bigger role in cancer than once thought and actually influences how cancer starts and spreads and how patients respond to treatment. Our work is helping to uncover these connections so we can improve cancer treatment outcomes, patient care and brain health.
This collaborative effort unites experts from across MD Anderson to explore how cancer and the nervous system influence one another. By connecting diverse areas of research, we are fostering new discoveries that have the potential to impact all types of cancer. We¡¯re leveraging the institution¡¯s strengths while developing new tools and technologies to better understand, and ultimately disrupt, the complex relationship between cancer and the nervous system.
Our studies are not only aimed at improving how we prevent, detect and treat cancer, but also at reducing the toll cancer treatments can take on a patient's brain health and body. This includes tackling issues like memory loss, cognitive decline, nerve damage, fatigue, pain and mental health challenges. A big part of our goal is to help people with cancer protect their brain health and emotional well-being throughout treatment and beyond.
We organize our large body of research into four key scientific areas:
Neurobiology: how all types of cancer and nerves communicate
Neural Neoplasms: studies cancers of the brain and nervous system
Neurotoxicity: how cancer treatments harm the brain and nervous system and how we can mitigate this
Neurobehavioral Health: supports mental and emotional health during and after cancer treatment
By understanding the powerful link between the nervous system and cancer, we aim to transform cancer care ¡ª helping people live longer and feel better.
Research Themes
Neurobiology
The Neurobiology Theme is dedicated to advancing foundational neuroscience research to unravel the complex mechanisms by which the nervous system shapes tumor biology and how tumors, in turn, impact neural function. Key areas of focus include exploring perineural invasion, where cancer cells invade nerves to facilitate metastases, understanding the role of the blood brain barrier, and investigating the role of immune cells within the nervous system in driving cancer-related neuroinflammation, tumor progression, and treatment resistance. This theme serves as the cornerstone for understanding the neuroscience underlying all other program themes and seeks to provide critical insights to inform and enhance the research endeavors in the other themes.
Recently funded initiatives falling within this theme include the following:
- FY25
- Deciphering how neuron-glial communications govern neoplastic transformation
- Investigating the vicious cycle between cancer pain-associated neuronal activity and malignancy
- Investigating the impact of glioma-associated germline risk alleles on neurodevelopmental trajectories
- Normalizing immune microenvironment in glioblastoma
- FY24
- Elucidating perineural niche in cancer and identify targetable pathways
- Defining the unique features of nervous system immunology in context of cancer and age
- Elucidating neurovascular barriers in the treatment of cancer and neurodegenerative disease
Neural Neoplasms
The Neural Neoplasms Theme aims to unravel the fundamental mechanisms governing primary and metastatic tumors of the brain, spine, skull base, and peripheral nerves. A key focus is understanding how the unique integration of these tumors within the nervous system influences their behavior, progression, and resistance to therapy. This includes investigating the cellular, molecular, and genetic drivers of tumor dynamics and exploring how neural signaling and interactions within the tumor microenvironment contribute to tumor growth and treatment resistance. This theme also seeks to identify biomarkers for diagnosis, prognosis and therapeutic targeting, leveraging insights from neuroscience to develop new precision medicine approaches for these challenging cancers. Recently funded initiatives falling within this theme include the following:
- FY25
- Leveraging MRI-based detection of glioma neuronal functional connectivity to map early tumor invasion
- Developing an endovascular neurosurgical oncology program: delivery of cellular therapeutics across the blood brain barrier for treatment of glioblastoma
- Understanding exosomes and microRNA in glioma therapy
- Characterizing and targeting aberrant RNA splicing induced by PRMT5 inhibition in gliomas
- FY24
- Creating a robust pipeline for in-house production of oncolytic viruses for the treatment of brain cancer
- Developing minimally invasive methods for determining diagnosis and progression of brain tumors through advanced neuroimaging and liquid biopsy
- Conducting therapeutic testing of novel agents through advanced in vitro and in vivo models
- Developing and validating a new imaging method to monitor immune cell therapies in vivo
Neurotoxicity
- FY25
- Characterizating and predicting second-generation anti-androgen associated neurotoxicity in patients with prostate cancer
- Understanding brain and biofluid biomarkers underlying cognitive decline following immune-checkpoint inhibitor therapy in patients with metastatic melanoma
- FY24
- Developing a rodent neurobehavioral core to assess treatment-related toxicities, mechanism-based drug targets and therapeutics
Neurobehavioral Health
The Neurobehavioral Health Theme seeks to elucidate the intricate relationships between social and affective biobehavioral factors (such as psychological, behavioral, and social influences) and cancer biology, including cancer prevention and outcomes. This theme explores how anxiety, depression, mental health, lifestyle choices, and social support systems affect tumor biology and the nervous system. Additionally, it aims to identify interventions that leverage biobehavioral factors to improve patient well-being and enhance treatment efficacy. By integrating neuroscience with behavioral science, this theme provides critical insights into the holistic care of individuals affected by cancer. Recently funded initiatives falling within this theme include the following:
- FY25
- Studying personalized neurostimulation for smoking cessation in cancer patients: an image-guided approach
- Examining how the crosstalk between glioma and stress-response neurons mediates tumor growth and tumor-induced stress
- FY24
- Identifying biologic, neuroradiologic and electrophysiologic biomarkers of delirium in hospitalized patients with advanced cancer through a longitudinal observational study
- Determining biomarkers of cancer-related fatigue and associations between markers of inflammation, stress-responsivity cellular energy production and dimensions of fatigue at different phases of the cancer trajectory