Assessment of the Neurological Impact of HIV-2 in West Africa

描述（申请人提供）：该项目旨在发展对西非人类免疫缺陷病毒引起的神经系统并发症进行临床神经系统评估的能力，加强圣路易斯华盛顿大学和其他美国中心的研究人员的专业知识，并与冈比亚医学研究理事会实验室和坦桑尼亚大学的研究人员分享专业知识。达喀尔（塞内加尔）。该项目将开发临床工具，用于描述与HIV-1和HIV-2感染有关的神经功能，并在非洲各地点培训小组，以便将该工具可靠地应用于已确定的HIV-2患者和对照组。该项目将描述HIV-2受试者中神经认知障碍、周围神经病变和脊髓病的患病率和特征。通过该项目，进行神经系统评估的能力将得到加强，并将为今后的调查建立小组。该项目还将为西非的多中心神经临床试验建立数据共享程序。将提供HIV-2感染受试者的神经影像学和CSF特征的初步观察，与HIV-2感染相关的衰老观察，以及与HIV-2相关的神经系统机会性感染的描述，以加强未来的研究项目。该项目的目的是发展能力，以便在今后的研究应用中对西非艾滋病毒的神经学表现进行更详细的机械研究。 公共卫生相关性：艾滋病毒感染对神经系统的影响极为常见，并严重致残。HIV-2可能也有严重的神经系统并发症，但尚未进行系统研究。艾滋病毒2型在西非流行，因此是该区域特有的问题。目前缺乏研究神经系统并发症的当地专业知识，因此这笔赠款及时提供了一个机会，通过发展在已经建立的队列研究中应用的专业知识来发展探测这种并发症的能力。该项目响应了艾滋病毒感染者社区的需求，并响应了寻求能力建设国际项目的方案公告。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Assessment of Neurological Impact of HIV-2 in West Africa This project is designed to develop capacity for clinical neurological assessment of human immunodeficiency virus induced neurological complications in West Africa, enhancing and sharing expertise of investigators at Washington University in St. Louis and other US centers with the Medical Research Council Laboratories in The Gambia and the Universite Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar (Senegal). The project will develop clinical tools for description of neurological function relevant to HIV-1 and HIV-2 infection and train teams at African sites to reliably apply the tool to established cohorts of HIV-2 patients and controls. The project will characterize the prevalence and characteristics of neurocognitive impairment, peripheral neuropathy and myelopathy in HIV-2 subjects. Through the project the capacity to perform neurological assessments will be enhanced and teams will be established for future investigations. The project will also establish data sharing procedures for multicenter neuroclinical trials in West Africa. Pilot observations of neuroimaging and CSF characteristics of HIV-2 infected subjects, observations relevant to aging with HIV-2 infection, and description of the neurological opportunistic infections associated with HIV-2 will be provided to enhance future research projects. The project is designed to develop the capacity to undertake more detailed and mechanistic studies of neurological manifestations of HIV in West Africa in subsequent research applications. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Neurological impact of HIV infection is extremely common and is seriously disabling. HIV-2 is likely to also have significant neurological complications, yet has not been systematically studied. HIV-2 is prevalent in West Africa, and thus uniquely problematic for this region. Local expertise to study neurological complications is presently lacking, making this grant timely in providing an opportunity to develop the capacity to probe this complication by developing expertise for application in already established cohort studies. The project is responsive to needs of the communities suffering with HIV and is responsive to the program announcement seeking capacity building international projects.