Assessing the Effect of Time From Infection and Systemic Inflammation on HIV-Associated Neurocognitive Disorder

Abstract

Despite advances in HIV treatment, HIV-Associated Neurocognitive Disorder (HAND), a condition marked by neurocognitive slowing in HIV patients, has persisted, even in those patients with well-controlled disease. There is some thought that this process is due to chronic inflammation in the plasma and central nervous system (CNS) that accompanies HIV infection. Our study explored the relationship between baseline levels of inflammation during the first 100 days of HIV infection, time from initial infection, and performance on a series of neurocognitive performance tests (NPT) among men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender women (TW) in Lima, Peru. We measured levels of 33 different inflammatory biomarkers in the plasma and CSF of participants in the SABES cohort of newly HIV+ MSM and TW, and used single-regression analysis to assess the relationship between individual biomarkers and neurocognitive performance NPT over 96 weeks. After adjustment for multiple comparisons, we found significant negative associations between levels of Plasma YKL40, Plasma IL-16, Plasma IL-6, CSF TNF-β, CSF IL-16, CSF TNF- α, and CSF IP-10, and NPT score at multiple timepoints.