BySaritha Krishna and Shawn Hervey-Jumper, UCSF |June 29th, 2023
UCSF neuroscientist Saritha Krishna and neurosurgeon Shawn Hervey-Jumper explain how brain cancer hijacks neural circuits and causes cognitive decline.
Researchers have long known that brain tumors, specifically a type of tumor called a glioma, can affect a person’s cognitive and physical function. Patients with glioblastoma, the most fatal type of brain tumor in adults, experience an especially drastic decline in quality of life. Glioblastomas are thought to impair normal brain functions by compressing and causing healthy tissue to swell, or competing with them for blood supply.
What exactly causes cognitive decline in brain tumor patients is still unknown. In our recently published research, we found that tumors can not only remodel neural circuits, but that brain activity itself can fuel tumor growth.
We are a neuroscientist and neurosurgeon team at the University of California, San Francisco. Our work focuses on understanding how brain tumors remodel neuronal circuits and how these changes affect language, motor and …