Karreman Team

The Cancer Neuroscience of Brain Metastases

Brain metastases remain one of the most devastating complications of cancer, and recent work has revealed that the brain's own neural architecture plays an active role in shaping how these tumors take hold and progress. Our research sits at the interface of neuroscience and oncology, asking how metastatic cancer cells exploit, communicate within, and even mimic neural networks once they reach the brain.
Using advanced intravital two-photon microscopy, the Karreman team tracks individual cancer cells in real time, from their arrest in brain microvessels through to the formation of macrometastases. This work has uncovered that metastatic cells from breast cancer, lung cancer, and melanoma can form coordinated, gap-junction-connected networks in the brain, a cancer-intrinsic adaptation of neural communication that drives tumor growth and resistance to treatment.
By combining in vivo imaging, correlative light and electron microscopy, and clinical specimens, the team aims to identify the cellular and molecular mechanisms that allow cancer cells to cross the blood-brain barrier, seed early metastatic niches, and interact with their neural microenvironment, work that is opening new avenues for preventative and therapeutic strategies against brain metastasis.

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Matthia Andrea Karreman

Teamleader Brain Metastases Research
Julia Mäurer
Niels Olshausen
Malin Bautz
Tara Moghiseh
Nico Horsak
Biatriz Carvalho Mustafa
Kaan Özkara
Judith Madelaine Rich
Nikolas Stevens
Meghna Valakatte

Publications

Cancer Discov. 2026.

Checkpoint Breaches: Unexpected Effects of Anti-PD-1 Therapy on the Blood-Brain Barrier.

Karreman MA, Winkler F.

Cell. 2026.

Cancer neuroscience: The past, the present, and the road ahead.

Winkler F, Heuer S, Althammer F, Augustin H, Beleggia F, Demir IE, Koenig J, Kuner R, Kuner T, Loges S, Platten M, Reinhardt HC, Rich JM, Sahm F, Stassart RM, Thiel V, Trumpp A, Venkataramani V, Wick W, Karreman MA.

Theranostics. 2026.

Voxel-accurate MRI-microscopy Correlation Enables AI-powered Prediction of Brain Disease States.

Schroers J, Yang Y, Reyhan E, Sivapalan N, Ismail-Zade E, Heuer A, Scheck JG, Pourkhalili Langeroudi A, Alhalabi OT, Moghiseh T, Fischer M, Batra D, Jende J, Sahm F, Suchorska B, Ippen FM, Heiland DH, Karreman MA, Ricklefs FL, Breckwoldt MO, Kurz FT, Venkataramani V.

Cancer Discov. 2026.

Screening for Tumor Microtube-Targeting Drugs Identifies PKC Modulators as Multipotent Inhibitors of Glioblastoma Progression.

Azorín DD, Hoffmann DC, Hebach NR, Jung E, Hausmann D, Ratliff M, Hai L, Horschitz S, Jabali A, Osswald M, Karreman MA, Kessler T, Wendler S, Mayer CD, Löb C, Lehnert P, Cebulla G, Reibold D, Khajuria RK, Bordignon P, Moor AE, Holland-Letz T, Reckless J, Ramsden N, Grainger D, Kreshuk A, Koch P, Wick W, Heuer S, Winkler F.

Neuron. 2025.

Cancer neuroscience of brain metastasis: When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Karreman MA, Winkler F.

Neuron. 2025.

Calm in the chaos: Targeting mTOR to reduce glioma-driven neuronal hyperexcitability.

Karreman MA, Venkataramani V.

Cell. 2025.

Characterizing and targeting glioblastoma neuron-tumor networks with retrograde tracing.

Tetzlaff SK, Reyhan E, Layer N, Bengtson CP, Heuer A, Schroers J, Faymonville AJ, Langeroudi AP, Drewa N, Keifert E, Wagner J, Soyka SJ, Schubert MC, Sivapalan N, Pramatarov RL, Buchert V, Wageringel T, Grabis E, Wißmann N, Alhalabi OT, Botz M, Bojcevski J, Campos J, Boztepe B, Scheck JG, Conic SH, Puschhof MC, Villa G, Drexler R, Zghaibeh Y, Hausmann F, Hänzelmann S, Karreman MA, Kurz FT, Schröter M, Thier M, Suwala AK, Forsberg-Nilsson K, Acuna C, Saez-Rodriguez J, Abdollahi A, Sahm F, Breckwoldt MO, Suchorska B, Ricklefs FL, Heiland DH, Venkataramani V.

Immunity. 2024.

T lymphocyte recruitment to melanoma brain tumors depends on distinct venous vessels.

Messmer JM, Thommek C, Piechutta M, Venkataramani V, Wehner R, Westphal D, Schubert M, Mayer CD, Effern M, Berghoff AS, Hinze D, Helfrich I, Schadendorf D, Wick W, Hölzel M, Karreman MA, Winkler F.

J Neurooncol. 2024.

Disrupting glioblastoma networks with tumor treating fields (TTFields) in in vitro models.

Schlieper-Scherf S, Hebach N, Hausmann D, Azorín DD, Hoffmann DC, Horschitz S, Maier E, Koch P, Karreman MA, Etminan N, Ratliff M.

Neuro Oncol. 2024.

Disturbance in cerebral blood microcirculation and hypoxic-ischemic microenvironment are associated with the development of brain metastasis.

Roesler J, Spitzer D, Jia X, Aasen SN, Sommer K, Roller B, Olshausen N, Hebach NR, Albinger N, Ullrich E, Zhu L, Wang F, Macas J, Forster MT, Steinbach JP, Sevenich L, Devraj K, Thorsen F, Karreman MA, Plate KH, Reiss Y, Harter PN.

Karreman Team

The Cancer Neuroscience of Brain Metastases

Karreman Team

Publications

Checkpoint Breaches: Unexpected Effects of Anti-PD-1 Therapy on the Blood-Brain Barrier.

Cancer neuroscience: The past, the present, and the road ahead.

Voxel-accurate MRI-microscopy Correlation Enables AI-powered Prediction of Brain Disease States.

Screening for Tumor Microtube-Targeting Drugs Identifies PKC Modulators as Multipotent Inhibitors of Glioblastoma Progression.

Cancer neuroscience of brain metastasis: When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Calm in the chaos: Targeting mTOR to reduce glioma-driven neuronal hyperexcitability.

Characterizing and targeting glioblastoma neuron-tumor networks with retrograde tracing.

T lymphocyte recruitment to melanoma brain tumors depends on distinct venous vessels.

Disrupting glioblastoma networks with tumor treating fields (TTFields) in in vitro models.

Disturbance in cerebral blood microcirculation and hypoxic-ischemic microenvironment are associated with the development of brain metastasis.

Active Remodeling of Capillary Endothelium via Cancer Cell-Derived MMP9 Promotes Metastatic Brain Colonization.

Autonomous rhythmic activity in glioma networks drives brain tumour growth.

The PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway as a preventive target in melanoma brain metastasis.

Identification and Characterization of Cancer Cells That Initiate Metastases to the Brain and Other Organs.

Local blood coagulation drives cancer cell arrest and brain metastasis in a mouse model.

Nintedanib and a bi-specific anti-VEGF/Ang2 nanobody selectively prevent brain metastases of lung adenocarcinoma cells.

Targeting an adhesion molecule to prevent brain colonization of lung cancer.

Monitoring innate immune cell dynamics in the glioma microenvironment by magnetic resonance imaging and multiphoton microscopy (MR-MPM).

The mechanics of metastatic seeding.

Correlated light and electron microscopy of cell division in large marine oocytes, eggs, and embryos.

Hemodynamic Forces Tune the Arrest, Adhesion, and Extravasation of Circulating Tumor Cells.

Find your way with X-Ray: Using microCT to correlate in vivo imaging with 3D electron microscopy.

Intravital Correlative Microscopy: Imaging Life at the Nanoscale.

Distinct mechanisms eliminate mother and daughter centrioles in meiosis of starfish oocytes.

Fast and precise targeting of single tumor cells in vivo by multimodal correlative microscopy.

Correlating intravital multi-photon microscopy to 3D electron microscopy of invading tumor cells using anatomical reference points.

VIS2FIX: rapid chemical fixation of vitreous sections for immuno-electron microscopy.

Probing the different life stages of a fluid catalytic cracking particle with integrated laser and electron microscopy.

Novel contrasting and labeling procedures for correlative microscopy of thawed cryosections.

Optimizing immuno-labeling for correlative fluorescence and electron microscopy on a single specimen.

Integrated laser and electron microscopy correlates structure of fluid catalytic cracking particles to Brønsted acidity.

VIS2FIX: a high-speed fixation method for immuno-electron microscopy.

Discovery of a new RNA-containing nuclear structure in UVC-induced apoptotic cells by integrated laser electron microscopy.