HIV infection or medications age brain

ST. LOUIS, Jan. 27 (UPI) -- Human immunodeficiency virus infection or its treatments age the brain prematurely, U.S. researchers found.

Dr. Beau Ances of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and colleagues at the University of California-San Diego reported brain blood flow of patients infected with HIV resembled the brains of uninfected people 15-20 years older.

"Brain blood flow levels decline naturally as we age, but HIV, the medications we use to control it or some combination of the two appear to be accelerating this process independent of aging," Ances said in a statement.

Ances and colleagues used magnetic resonance imaging scanners and a technique known as arterial spin labeling to examine a group of 26 patients with HIV and a group of 25 uninfected controls comparable in mean age range and education.

In addition to finding the brain blood flow values significantly reduced in subjects with HIV versus the uninfected controls, the researchers determined the brains of those in the HIV infected group needed to work harder to get an assigned task done. The researchers also reported reduced brain blood flow even among young, recently infected patients with HIV.

The findings are published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.