Naked Science Forum

Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: Stephanie on 23/06/2008 13:46:04

Title: What causes brain cancers?
Post by: Stephanie on 23/06/2008 13:46:04

Stephanie asked the Naked Scientists:

I love your show and I download the podcast every week (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/podcasts/).

The other day I was listening to an older show, you had someone ask a question about cancer and it made me wonder how brain cancer works.

I was under the impression that cancer was a cell deformity, but the brain does not produce new cells, at least thats whats I have been told, so how do brain cells mutate if they are not growing?

What do you think?

Title: What causes brain cancers?
Post by: RD on 06/10/2008 02:38:11

Glial cells in the brain do divide and can form cancer: Glioma  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glioma)

Quote

Glia retain the ability to undergo cell division in adulthood, while most neurons cannot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glia

Cancer in the brain can be metastatic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metastasis): seeded from cancer cells from elsewhere (http://www.cancerhelp.org.uk/help/default.asp?page=5301), e.g. breast, bowel.