We examine neutron star properties based on a model of dense matter composed of B =1 skyrmions immersed in a mesonic mean field background .
The model realizes spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking non-linearly and incorporates scale-breaking of QCD through a dilaton VEV that also affects the mean fields .
Quartic self-interactions among the vector mesons are introduced on grounds of naturalness in the corresponding effective field theory .
Within a plausible range of the quartic couplings , the model generates neutron star masses and radii that are consistent with a preponderance of observational constraints , including recent ones that point to the existence of relatively massive neutron stars M \sim 1.7 M _ { \odot } and radii R \sim 12-14 km .
If the existence of neutron stars with such dimensions is confirmed , matter at supra-nuclear density is stiffer than extrapolations of most microscopic models suggest .