Resting Cerebral Blood Flow as a Biomarker of HIV in the Brain

Jewell Thomas¹, Huiling Peng¹, Tammie Benzinger², Avi Snyder¹, David Clifford¹, Beau Ances¹

HIV causes hypoperfusion within cortical and subcortical brain structures. We used arterial spin labeling (ASL) to measure resting cerebral blood flow (rCBF) within HIV+ participants (both nave and on stable highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART)) and HIV- controls. HIV- controls had a significantly higher rCBF (61.7 1.7 mL/100gm/min) compared to HIV+ participants (48.4 1.9 mL/100gm/min). rCBF was significantly diminished in HIV+ nave patients (44.8 1.9 mL/100gm/min) compared to HIV+ subjects on stable HAART (52.6 2.0 mL/100gm/min). Our results suggest that rCBF may provide a sensitive biomarker for efficacy of HAART in the brain of HIV+ participants.