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

描述(申请人提供)：评估HIV-2对西非的神经学影响本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学评估的能力，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委员会实验室和达喀尔大学(塞内加尔)分享研究人员的专业知识。该项目将开发描述与艾滋病毒-1和艾滋病毒-2感染有关的神经功能的临床工具，并在非洲地点培训小组，以可靠地将该工具应用于艾滋病毒-2患者和对照的既定队列。该项目将描述HIV-2受试者中神经认知障碍、周围神经病和脊髓病的患病率和特征。通过该项目，将提高进行神经学评估的能力，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感染者的神经影像和脑脊液特征的初步观察，与艾滋病毒-2感染的衰老相关的观察，以及与HIV-2相关的神经机会性感染的描述，以加强未来的研究项目。该项目旨在发展能力，以便在以后的研究应用中对西非艾滋病毒的神经表现进行更详细和机械性的研究。 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也可能有显著的神经系统并发症，但尚未进行系统研究。艾滋病毒-2在西非流行，因此对该地区来说是独一无二的问题。目前缺乏研究神经系统并发症的当地专门知识，因此这笔赠款适时地提供了一个机会，通过开发专门知识以应用于已经建立的队列研究，来发展探索这种并发症的能力。该项目响应了艾滋病毒感染者社区的需求，并响应了项目公告，寻求能力建设国际项目。

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.