TY  - JOUR
AU  - Kumar, Adarsh M. 
AU  - Fernandez, J. B. 
AU  - Borodowsky, Irina 
AU  - Gonzalez, Louis 
AU  - Kumar, Mahendra 
PY  - 2007
TI  - HIV-1 Infection and Central Monoamine Neurotransmitters
JF  - American Journal of Infectious Diseases
VL  - 3
IS  - 4
DO  - 10.3844/ajidsp.2007.177.183
UR  - https://thescipub.com/abstract/ajidsp.2007.177.183
AB  - Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) enters the central nervous system (CNS) shortly after infection and gets localized in different brain regions, leading to various types of neuropathological problems. It has been hypothesized that HIV-1 infection mediated neuropathogenesis may also adversely affect the activity of the central monoamine neurotransmitters systems, such as dopamine (DA), and 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT, serotonin), resulting in neurocognitive deficits and mental health problems. However, investigations are scarce with respect to the status of these neurotransmitters in the CNS of HIV-1+ individuals, particularly in those patients who had received antiretroviral therapy (ART) during life. Since, mental health problems and neurocognitive and neuropsychological deficits continue to persist even after ART intervention, it is pertinent to determine the CNS status of the neurotransmitters associated with these functions. We determined the neurotransmitters, dopamine and its metabolite, homovanillic acid (HVA) in different brain regions of a group of autopsied cases of HIV-1+ and HIV-1 negative controls, using highly sensitive CoulArray HPLC-ECD system. Distribution of HIV-1 viral RNA in these brain regions was also measured using real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (real-time RT-PCR) technology with high sensitivity of detection (