How does HIV affect the central nervous system? Hearing systems or "windows," new study says

Even with effective antiretroviral therapy, patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) can still cause central nervous system damageBut the problem is mainly caused by disease, treatment or the body's immune response, which is still controversialAnd it is now very difficult to reliably detect these changes earlyA new study, published in Clinical Neurophysiology, suggests that the auditory system of the brain may provide a window into how the brain is affected by HIVThe study was conducted by a team of researchers from the Geisel School of Medicine in Dartmouth, United States, and the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University" In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, we have been conducting a series of hearing tests on a group of HIV-positive patientsJay Buckey, a professor at the Geisel School of Medicine who co-led the study, said, "At first we thought we'd find that HIV affects the ear, but it seems to be affecting the brain's ability to process sound." "
to test this hypothesis, the team used what is known as the Voice Induced Frequency Follow Reaction (FFR), an objective measure of auditory functionIn this test, the researchers played sounds common to everyday speech, such as "ba," "da" or "ga," and scalp electrodes recorded brain wavesThis provides an objective, non-invasive way to record brain waves and evaluate auditory functions in the brainNina Kraus, a communications science and neurobiology professor at Northwestern University and apaper, said, "The playback involves pitch, time, harmonies and phrases, and FFR allows us to understand how the brain behaves in dealing with these different acoustic components." "
researchers comparing FFR results in 68 HIV-positive adults and 59 HIV-negative adults found that although hearing thresholds were normal in hearing tests, the auditory neurophysiological response of HIV-positive adults to certain language cues was disruptedThey believe this confirms that hearing impairment is caused by the central nervous system", "Usually, if you want to evaluate cognitive function, you'll ask participants to do math, remember a bunch of words, do puzzles or tasks, and draw." "It requires people to be trained in this type of test and may be specific to the language and culture of the subjects." The important thing about theresults is that the test does not require any action from the participants; it is recorded passively, and the subjects can even sleep or watch a movie "We see a broad prospect of FFR as an easy and objective way to evaluate the brain "
the team believes that FFR is a viable tool to better understand not only the mechanisms of HIV-related brain dysfunction, but also other diseases that affect the brain, such as concussions, Alzheimer's disease and Zika virus infection they concluded that the study provides objective evidence of HIV's link to central nervous system dysfunction In addition, neurophysiology may provide a viable way for research into the health of the central nervous system of HIV (
Bio Valley Bioon.com) .