HIV may no longer spell death for those who have access to powerful antiretroviral drugs, but the virus can cause dementia whether or not such drugs are taken. Two new studies bring us closer to understanding why.
Although neurons are resistant to HIV infection, about one in five people with HIV end up with early-onset dementia, says Lachlan Gray at the Burnet Institute in Melbourne, Australia. He says the key lies in astrocytes, a type of brain cell that HIV can infect.
Gray analysed HIV taken from the astrocytes of five people with HIV who died with dementia. He found…
