Margaret R. Lentz1, Mona A. Mohamed2,3,
Hyun Kim1, Jennifer A. Short1, Mahaveer N. Degaonkar2,
Elkan Halpern1, Katherine Conant4, Ned Sacktor5,
Ola Selnes5, Peter B. Barker2,3, Martin G. Pomper2
1Department of Neuroradiology/A. A.
Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital,
Boston, MA, United States; 2Russell H. Morgan Department of
Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions,
Baltimore, MD, United States; 3F. M. Kirby Center for Functional
Brain Imaging/Kennedy Krieger Institute, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions,
Baltimore, MD, United States; 4Department of Neuroscience,
Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC, United States; 5Department
of Neurology, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, MD, United
States
The
application of combined antiretroviral (ARV) therapy has been shown to change
viral and immune signaling kinetics, indicating that correlations between
these and MR measures observed in cross-sectional studies may not last. MRSI, global deficit scorings (GDS) and CSF
HIV RNA levels of 51 chronically HIV-infected subjects examined over 10
months of a new ARV administration were included in this study. Mixed model regression analysis indicated that
later improvements in subjects GDS were associated with earlier improvements
in neuroaxonal function and CSF viral load, suggesting that ARV-mediated
decreases in CSF viral levels and neuroaxonal recovery precede improvements
in cognitive functioning.
Keywords