Abstract #3481

White matter microstructure among perinatally HIV-infected youth: A diffusion tensor imaging study

Manoj Kumar Sarma¹, Margaret Keller², Rajakumar Nagarajan¹, David E Michalik³, Judy Hayes², Karin Nielsen-Saines⁴, Jaime Deville⁴, Joseph A Church⁵, Irwin Walot⁶, and M. Albert Thomas¹

¹Radiological Sciences, UCLA School of Medicine, Los angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ²Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, CA, United States, ³Infectious disease-Pediatrics, Miller’s Children’s Hospital of Long Beach, Long Beach, CA, United States, ⁴Pediatrics, UCLA School of Medicine, Los angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ⁵Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ⁶Radiology, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, CA, United States

DTI was used to derive in vivo tissue status measurements of subcortical brain regions that are vulnerable to injury in perinatally HIV-infected youths. Quantitative measurements, including the mean diffusivity (MD), fractional anisotropy (FA), axial diffusivity (AD) and radial diffusivity (RD) were determined in of the whole brain in 12 well-characterized HIV youths and in 12 healthy control subjects. We observed widespread brain regions with increased AD values in perinatally HIV-infected youths compared to healthy controls, indicating axonal changes. We also observed increased FA, MD and RD. To confirm these findings a correlation study with neurodevelopement and neurocognitive changes as well as ART effect is needed. Understanding the impact of HIV disease severity on white matter integrity provides potentially useful clinical tools for evaluating ART efficacy during a dynamic period of brain development.

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