IMPORTANCE Despite the introduction of combination antiretroviral therapy (cART), HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders continue to be a problem for treated HIV-positive individuals. The cause of this impairment remains unclear.OBJECTIVE To determine if detectable brain changes occur during a 2-year period in HIV-positive individuals who were aviremic and treated with cART.
DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTSIn this longitudinal case-control study, participants underwent neuroimaging and neuropsychological assessment approximately 2 years apart. Data were collected from October 26, 2011, to March 1, 2016. Data from 92 HIV-positive individuals were acquired at Washington University in St Louis from ongoing studies conducted in the infectious disease clinic and AIDS Clinical Trial Unit. A total of 55 HIV-negative control participants were recruited from the St Louis community and a research participant registry. A total of 48 HIV-positive individuals who were aviremic and treated with cART and 31 demographically similar HIV-negative controls met the study requirements and were included in the analyses.MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Brain volumes were extracted with tensor-based and voxel-based morphometry and cortical modeling. Raw scores from neuropsychological tests quantified cognitive performance. Multivariable mixed-effects models assessed the effect of HIV serostatus on brain volumes and cognitive performance, and determined if HIV serostatus affected how these measures changed over time. With HIV-positive participants, linear regression models tested whether brain volumes and cognitive performance were associated with measures of infection severity and duration of infection.