A Shortcut to the Brain

• Published in: American scientist Vol. 106; no. 6; pp. 326 - 327
• Main Author: Burke, Katie
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Research Triangle Park Sigma XI-The Scientific Research Society 01-11-2018
• Subjects: Alzheimer's disease; Blood; Blood vessels; Bone marrow; Brain; Brain cancer; Brain research; Cancer; Cancer therapies; Central nervous system; Inflammation; Injuries; Meninges; Meningitis; Multiple sclerosis; Skull; Spinal cord
• ISSN: 0003-0996; 1545-2786
• DOI: 10.1511/2018.106.6.326

Dorothy Sipkins of Duke University School of Medicine and Fanny Herisson of Harvard Medical School had independently begun asking similar questions during clinical medical work early in their careers. Sipkins, who had been studying cancers that metastasize to the central nervous system, wondered how cancer cells get into the brain. Herisson wondered whether and how the skull's marrow contributes to brain inflammation. Both researchers honed in on blood vessels that had not previously been scrutinized--tiny ones that pass through the skull's marrow to the outer covering of the brain, the meninges. Herisson also didn't start out looking for these channels. As a clinician, I had no idea they existed, she says. We think of the bone and brain as two different compartments, and the meninges are between them. I had no idea that there might be some kind of communication between them. But she thought there could be.