One Experiment: Brain-body’s feathery display

Peacocks symbolize a variety of things—beauty, luck, royalty, and more. But beneath those tall, colorful feathers lurks a hidden aggression. At a glance, the above image may bear some resemblance to peacock plumage. But it’s actually human breast cells (yellow) mingling with mouse neurons. It comes courtesy of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Assistant Professor Jeremy Borniger.

As a postdoc, Borniger helped pioneer the field of cancer neuroscience. His lab is now helping scientists understand how tumors and the brain communicate with one another. This isn’t limited to signals passing back and forth. It also includes exchanges of organelles like mitochondria—the clusters of magenta dots above.

The brain is the body’s command center. It regulates processes like sleep and the immune response from the top down. It controls these and other daily activities with the help of the peripheral nervous system. Your brain relies on this branching network of nerves to get a sense of what’s going on throughout your body and respond accordingly.

But when cancer plugs into that neural network, things can start to go haywire. “Changes in the brain can have diverse system-wide effects,” Borniger explains. “Things like elevated heart rate, release of stress hormones, and altered immune function. These can aid tumor growth and metastasis.”

Borniger’s work is part of CSHL’s growing focus on brain-body physiology. It’s part of the Laboratory’s Foundations for the Future program. The project explores the complex interactions between cancer and the brain—and their impact on the body.

The field was recently the focus of CSHL’s 2024 Symposium on Quantitative Biology. Borniger was one of several CSHL neuroscientists who participated. A leading voice in brain-body physiology, he recently penned a review article on the topic for Cancer Discovery. The article points to what the authors call the “Next Directions in the Neuroscience of Cancer.” They’re directions Borniger and his colleagues at CSHL are eager to pursue as they continue to explore the future of brain-body physiology.

Written by: Nick Wurm, Communications Specialist | wurm@cshl.edu | 516-367-5940