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The idea that cancer can hijack brain plasticity — subverting supple connections in the healthy brain that ordinarily lead to learning and memory formation — is gaining traction.

First reported in Cell in 2015, research led by Stanford neuro-oncologist Michelle Monje showed that active nerve cells could promote the growth of high-grade gliomas, a form of brain cancer with a poor prognosis. Four years later, her lab revealed in a Nature paper that synapses between these neurons and gliomas spurred tumor growth, and last year, the team demonstrated how these same synapses revved up glioblastoma’s spread.

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There are still many questions about precisely how this process unfolds, and it’s too soon to say how solutions might be reached. But in a new paper published in Nature on Wednesday, Monje’s team solves another part of the puzzle, shining light on the electrochemical signaling pathway between neurons and cancer cells.

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