HIV HCV co infection and HCV mono infection are associated with subcortical and cortical atrophy
Introduction: Co infection with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a significant problem with almost 30% of HIV infected individuals also HCV co infected [1] Both viruses have similar routes of transmission and are capable of crossing the blood brain barrier [2] resulting in neuropathological changes and brain inflammation. Cognitive impairment was previously thought to result from cirrhosis associated hepatic encephalopathy. Recent evidence, however, suggests that approximately one third of people with chronic HCV experience cognitive impairment [3] even in the absence of cirrhosis and that its occurrence is unrelated to other indices of liver function. While the use of neuroimaging techniques such as Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy have helped to identify metabolite abnormalities in regions such as the basal ganglia, little is known about how the co infection affects other brain regions, including which cortical regions are differentially affected. The current study sought to investigate cortical thickness and subcortical structure volume across a group of HCV/HIV co infected, HCV monoinfected and healthy adults employing an automated method for regional parcellation that uses curvature landmarks and gray matter (GM)/white matter (WM) surface boundary information. We conducted a cortical surface based analysis of the whole cortical mantle obtained from volumetric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. The main objective of the study is to compare measures of cortical thickness and subcortical structure volume between HCV mono infected, HIV/HCV co infected, and healthy controls.