Chronic Neural Activity Recorded Within Breast Tumors

Overview

Journal Sci Rep

Specialty Science

Date 2020 Sep 10

PMID 32908180

Citations 22

Authors

Grant A McCallum

Jay Shiralkar

Diana Suciu

Gil Covarrubias

Jennifer S Yu

Efstathios Karathanasis

Dominique M Durand

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Nerve fibers are known to reside within malignant tumors and the greater the neuronal density the worse prognosis for the patient. Recent discoveries using tumor bearing animal models have eluded to the autonomic nervous system having a direct effect on tumor growth and metastasis. We report the first direct and chronic in vivo measurements of neural activity within tumors. Using a triple-negative mammary cancer mouse model and chronic neural interface techniques, we have recorded neural activity directly within the tumor mass while the tumor grows and metastasizes. The results indicate that there is a strong connection between the autonomic nervous system and the tumor and could help uncover the mechanisms of tumor growth and metastasis.

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