HIV triggers the 'opposite of cancer' in the brain

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Study unpicks how AIDS causes dementia.

Ewen Callaway

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Click to see a map of how the brain can be affected by HIV.Getty

A study showing how HIV could prevent the brain from making new neurons offers an explanation for why some AIDS patients get dementia — and suggests a possible treatment. Dementia due to HIV is the leading cause of cognitive decline in people under 40 years of age, says Stuart Lipton, a biologist at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in La Jolla, California, who led the study in Cell Stem Cell1. Researchers aren't sure what causes the condition, which afflicts 10-30% of people with HIV and causes symptoms including forgetfulness and leg weakness. If untreated with antiretroviral drugs, sufferers can turn comatose.Biologists have two theories to explain AIDS-related dementia. It could be that when HIV infects a type of white blood cell called a macrophage, the cell pumps out inflammatory chemicals to battle the infection that also, unfortunately, wipe out neurons.Or HIV could inflict its damage more directly. One previous study showed that a protein in the virus's shell — called gp120 — can stop brain stem cells from dividing2. Such new stem cells are needed to make new neurons.Undivided ....

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070813/full/070813-7.html

 

 

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