Summary
A 25-year-old homosexual AIDS patient presented with progressive cognitive, motor and behavioral disturbances consistent with HIV encephalopathy. CT scans demonstrated progressive diffuse brain atrophy. Neuropathology showed predominant cortical changes including severe neuronal loss corroborated by morphometry. Only minimal changes were found in the white matter and basal ganglia. Immunocytochemistry for HIV stained occasional microglial cells more markedly in the cerebral cortex. This suggests that HIV infection of the brain may cause predominant cortical nerve cell loss, and that HIV encephalopathy is not necessarily due to white matter lesions.
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Supported by grants from Agence Nationale de Recherches sur le SIDA (ANRS), Medical Research Council (MRC), AIDS Forschungsförderung des BMFT (FKZ II-040-87), Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (P7154-MED), and by a Concerted Action “Neuropathology of AIDS” of the Medical Commission of the European Communities
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Gray, F., Haug, H., Chimelli, L. et al. Prominent cortical atrophy with neuronal loss as correlate of human immunodeficiency virus encephalopathy. Acta Neuropathol 82, 229–233 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00294450
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00294450