Emerging neuroimmune mechanisms in cancer neuroscience

It has become increasingly recognized that neural signals can profoundly influence the prognosis of various cancer types. In the past years, we have witnessed “cancer neuroscience,” which primarily focuses on the complex crosstalk between tumors and neural signals, emerging as a new, multidisciplinary direction of biomedical science. This review aims to summarize the current knowledge of this research frontier, with an emphasis on the neuroimmune mechanisms enacted through the reciprocal interactions between tumors and the central or peripheral nervous system. In addition, we wish to highlight several key questions of cancer neuroscience and its neuroimmune action that warrant future research and translational efforts, including novel strategies for manipulating neural signals for antitumor immunotherapies, as well as managing cancer-related neurological or psychiatric complications.