The nervous system can drive the initiation, growth, spread, and therapy resistance of cancer, and cancer can manipulate the nervous system in ways that further support disease progression. Tumors growing within the brain or elsewhere in the body connect with neuronal networks in circuit-specific manners, via neuron-to-cancer synaptic interactions and paracrine crosstalk. Moreover, neural factors govern critical components of the tumor environment, such as the immune system, and cancer can use neural mechanisms in a malignant cell-intrinsic manner. Here we provide a personal view on the burgeoning field of cancer neuroscience and highlight the need to approach cancer research from a neuroscience perspective — together with neuroscientists.
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Authors and Affiliations
Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Michelle Monje
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Michelle Monje
Department of Neurology, Heidelberg Medical Faculty of Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany
Frank Winkler
German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany
Frank Winkler
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Correspondence to Michelle Monje or Frank Winkler.
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M.M. holds equity in MapLight Therapeutics. M.M. reports the patent (US Patent 10,377,818) ‘Method for treating glioma’. F.W. reports the patent (WO2017020982A1) ‘Agents for use in the treatment of glioma’. F.W. is a co-founder of DC Europa Ltd (a company trading under the name Divide & Conquer) that is developing new medicines for the treatment of glioma. Divide & Conquer also provides research funding to F.W.’s lab under a research collaboration agreement.
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Monje, M., Winkler, F. Cancer research needs neuroscience and neuroscientists. Nat Neurosci (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-025-01925-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-025-01925-2
