TRACKING HIV INFECTION AND ALCOHOL ABUSE CNS COMORBIDITY WITH NEUROIMAGING

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. We are continuing a controlled, naturalistic longitudinal study modeling cumulative and progressive effects of HIV infection and alcohol abuse, alone and in combination on brain structure and associated function and are following a sample of community participants who fall into 4 groups: HIV infection along, use disorder alone, HIV combined with AUD, and healthy comparison group without either HIV or AUD. In this continuation cycle we will follow the existing cohort and recruit a new cohort who will also be followed for 3 years. We will enhance the MR protocol with newly developed procedures including a) high resolution, isotropic DTI at 3.0 T for quantitative fiber tracking of selective white matter fiber bundles; b) CT-PRESS spectroscopy to quantify myo-Inositol (mI), glutamate (Glu), N-acetylaspartate (NAA), creatine + phosphocreatine (Cr), and choline (Cho) and calculate the transverse relaxation time (T2) for NAA, Cr and Cho; c) incorporate additional neuropsychological tasks for testing brain structure-function hypotheses; and d) augment clinical evaluation with a physical assessment of neuropathy and formal evaluation of HIV medication compliance. Analyses will test a dual model of the comorbidity of alcohol and HIV: interactive effects on structures disrupted by both diseases (e.g., frontal lobes), additive effects on structures disrupted by only one disease (e.g., basal ganglia in HIV infection, cerebellum in alcoholism), and synergistic effects emerging from disease comorbidity (e.g., motor-sensory sector of the corpus callosum).