Effects of HIV Infection, methamphetamine dependence and age on cortical thickness, area and volume

Abstract

ObjectiveThis study examined the effects of HIV infection, methamphetamine dependence and their interaction on cortical thickness, area and volume, as well as the potential interactive effects on cortical morphometry of HIV and methamphetamine with age.MethodT1-weighted structural images were obtained on a 3.0T General Electric MR750 scanner. Freesurfer v5.3.0 was used to derive cortical thickness, area and volume measures in thirty-four regions based on Desikan-Killiany atlas labels.ResultsFollowing correction for multiple statistical tests, HIV diagnosis was not significantly related to cortical thickness or area in any ROI, although smaller global cortical area and volume were seen in those with lower nadir CD4 count. HIV diagnosis, nevertheless, was associated with smaller mean cortical volumes in rostral middle frontal gyrus and in the inferior and superior parietal lobes. Methamphetamine dependence was significantly associated with thinner cortex especially in posterior cingulate gyrus, but was not associated with cortical area or volume following correction for multiple statistical tests. We found little evidence that methamphetamine dependence moderated differences in cortical area, volume or thickness for any ROI in the HIV seropositive group. Interactions with age revealed that HIV diagnosis attenuated the degree of age-related cortical thinning seen in non-infected individuals; intercepts indicated that young HIV seropositive individuals had thinner cortex than non-infected peers.ConclusionsMethamphetamine dependence does not appear to potentiate a reduction of cortical area, volume or thickness in HIV seropositive individuals. The finding of thinner cortex in young HIV seropositive individuals and the association between CD4 nadir and global cortical area and volume argue for prioritizing early antiretroviral treatment.

Altered patterns of fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation and regional homogeneity in abstinent methamphetamine-dependent users

“…In addition, decreased glutamate + glutamine was observed in the precuneus in early abstinent MADs 83 . Cortical thickness trended smaller in precuneus in MADs 84 . Consequently, we speculate that the decreased ReHo in the left precuneus is related to dysregulation of the exteroception process due to MA use.…”

Human immune deficiency virus‐related structural alterations in the brain are dependent on age

“…Structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) could be quantified by plenty of brain structural metrics such as volume and cortical thickness (CTH), which have been widely used in HIV diseases (Correa et al, 2016; MacDuffie et al, 2018; Sanford et al, 2017; Sanford, Ances, et al, 2018). For example, gray matter volumetric alternations in putamen and caudate were observed in earliest HIV‐infected state (Kallianpur et al, 2020) and in primary HIV infection durations (Ragin et al, 2012), and played a key role in the multimodal classification for HIV patients (Sui et al, 2020).…”

Connectivity‐informed adaptive regularization for generalized outcomes

“…Such procedures are then followed by a multiple testing correction leading to an increased number of false negatives and, consequently, to reduced power. For instance, after multiple testing correction was applied in MacDuffie et al (2018), there were no brain regions found with cortical thickness significantly related to the HIV diagnosis, although smaller global cortical area and volume were observed in HIV‐positive participants with lower nadir CD4 count.…”

“…All considered approaches discovered regions located mostly in left parietal and frontal brain lobes. The cortical thickness of these brain regions is often reported as being significantly reduced by HIV infection (MacDuffie et al, 2018; Sanford et al, 2018). In particular, changes in mean cortical thickness in the left precentral and the supramarginal gyrus were found to be significantly associated with HIV infection Kallianpur et al (2012), while significantly lower cortical thickness in the bilateral postcentral region in HIV patients was observed by Yadav et al (2017).…”