Estimates from the National Brain Tumor Society show that about 700,000 individuals in the United States live with primary brain tumors. With a relative survival rate of 35.7%, malignant brain tumors are among the deadliest types of cancers.
Although there are more than 100 types of brain cancers, glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) tends to have the most severe health outcomes. Left untreated, this aggressive brain tumor can be fatal in as little as six months. There is currently no cure for GBM, and treatment efforts are currently focused on controlling the tumor and maintaining the patient’s quality of life.
For as long as researchers have been studying the condition, they have known that glioblastoma can impact both mental and physical functions. However, they don’t know exactly why glioblastomas cause mental decline, positing instead that mental impairment occurs when the brain tumor compresses healthy brain tissue and causes it to swell. Another theory put forward by scientists is that brain tumors compete with healthy tissue in the brain for blood and deprive it of much-needed oxygen and nutrients.
Recent efforts by a research team from the University of California, San Francisco may have shed light on the underlying mechanisms that cause cognitive decline in brain cancer patients.
Focusing their efforts on how brain tumors rewire neural pathways and the cognitive, motor, and language changes resulting from this neural remodeling, the research team found that gliomas use a previously unknown mechanism to essentially “hijack” neural circuits. This mechanism allows them to modify patients’ neural circuitry and may cause cognitive decline in glioma patients.
The research team, which was comprised of a neurosurgeon and a neuroscientist, wanted to understand how the positive feedback loop that allows brain tumors to proliferate affected cognition and behavior in glioma patients. This feedback loop occurs when cancer cells produce neurotransmitter-like substances that trigger hyperactivity in neurons and cause those neurons to secrete chemicals that speed up the growth of cancer cells.
After using electrocorticography to study the brains of patients while they were performing various activities, the researchers found that certain regions of the brain that were infiltrated by cancer cells would become more engaged during activities that they typically weren’t associated with. This indicated that gliomas could take over brain tissue, restructure their connections, and cause those connections to become active even when they typically shouldn’t be active.
However, even though these brain regions exhibited hyperactivity, the research team says they had significantly reduced computational power and often had to rely on additional brain cells to do tasks that previously required a smaller set of neurons.
The research team is now working on a drug that could prevent the expansion of brain tumors and prevent cognitive decline in brain cancer patients.
As more teams from for-profit entities such as CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) devote more research resources to understanding brain cancers better, the insights they gain are likely to result in better therapeutics that will be beneficial to patients diagnosed with these malignancies.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/CNSP
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