Clin affect dis: even with early treatment, HIV still attacks young brains

December 29, 2019 / bioun / - -- currently, the vast majority of HIV infected children live in sub Saharan Africa Although early antiretroviral therapy (Art) can reduce the mortality of children infected with HIV and exposed to HIV, studies have shown that the virus may still affect the brain HIV may damage neural development and affect children's learning and reasoning ability That's why Professor Michael Boivin, director of the psychiatry research program at the school of plastic surgery, Michigan State University, in a two-year longitudinal study, set out to understand exactly how HIV affects children's neuropsychological development The related research results were recently published in the Journal of clinical infectious diseases The title of the paper is "African multi site 2-year neuroscience study of school age children persistently infected, exposed, and unexpected to human immunity virus" The picture is from cc0 public domain Boivin and his colleagues assessed neuropsychological development in three groups of children aged 5 to 11 years: those who were perinatal HIV infected and treated with anti art drugs; those who were HIV exposed but HIV negative; and those who were never HIV exposed The new study was conducted in six research sites in four countries in sub Saharan Africa to gain insight into how HIV affects children in the region To date, this is the first fully validated, multi site neuropsychological assessment of school-age children in Africa affected by HIV Through various assessments, the researchers found that even with early treatment and good clinical care, children infected with HIV still have major neuropsychological problems During the study, there was a growing gap between HIV positive and HIV negative children in the area of reasoning and planning Generally speaking, these abilities tend to grow greatly in the school age of healthy children "This is the most important cognitive function for children infected with HIV in the future in terms of the possibility of taking drugs, making the right decisions and avoiding risky behaviors such as early sex, psychosocial problems and academic achievement," Boivin said What is the most important factor? Early medical treatment, which began as early as six months old, is likely to be insufficient to address HIV related neurocognitive deficits, although it can allow children to survive and make these treated children healthier than untreated children Among these children, treatment should begin earlier to improve long-term neurocognitive outcomes (bio.com) reference: 1 Michael J Boivin et al African multi site 2-year neurosynthetic study of school age children persistently infected, exposed, and unexposed to human immunity virus Clinical infectious diseases, 2019, DOI: 10.1093/cid/ciz1088 2 Ever with early treatment, HIV still attacks young brains, study says https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-12-early-treatment-hiv-young-brains.html