claim
active
claim:cancer-as-loss-of-organizational-self-boundaryCancer as loss of organizational self-boundary
Levin proposes cancer cells become isolated from physiological signals that bind them into organ-level collectives, reverting to unicellular-scale goals, shrinking their computational self.
Source paper
extracted_from(2019) · Levin M
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Findings (2)
finding
- Experimentally validated prediction: depolarizing specific cell populations in normal tadpoles induces metastatic melanoma transformation, demonstrating causal role of bioelectric communication.
- Finding that constitutive or optogenetic hyperpolarization can prevent human oncogenes from inducing tumors, supporting bioelectric control of cancer fate.
Communities (3)
community
- Levin-led research showing bioelectric signals encode and control anatomical goal states in living systems.
- Levin-framework linking gap junction bioelectricity to cancer, planaria, and scaling of cellular Selves.
- Using ion channel manipulation and bioelectric state to suppress tumorigenesis and override oncogenic pathways, pioneered by Michael Levin's group.
Concepts (2)
concept
- Gap JunctionsimplementsCellular connections that enable bioelectric communication; form bioelectric networks underlying morphogenetic control and can be manipulated experimentally via molecular reagents.
- Computational boundary of a SelfsupportsCore concept defining an Individual by the spatio-temporal boundary of events it can measure, model, and affect—demarcating the limits of its cognition.
Related by similarity (8)
cosine ≥ 0.65 · no typed edgeEntities in the same semantic neighborhood but without a typed relation to this one — candidates for new edges or unrecognized duplicates.
- Oncogene-induced gap junction closure shrinks the cognitive boundary of cells.
- Cancer is interpreted as cells reverting to unicellular selfishness due to loss of gap junctional coupling, shrinking their cognitive boundary.
- Frames metastasis as cells reverting to unicellular goals, treatable by restoring bioelectric connectivity.
- The model that cancer results from cells shrinking their computational boundaries (closing gap junctions) and reverting to unicellular goals.
- Provocative reinterpretation of cancer as a failure mode of collective decision-making.
- Cancer is a breakdown of the multiscale binding, leading cells to revert to unicellular goals.hypothesis0.753Gap junction closure makes cells selfish, shrink their cognitive boundary; restoring Vmem can normalize.
- what is the boundary of self, and how does it change across development, injury, and chimeric modification?question0.746Core question about the plasticity of self-models, central to the paper's argument about identity and change