Modeling Antiretrovial Treatment to Mitigate HIV in the Brain: Impact of the Blood-Brain Barrier.

Current research in Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) focuses on eradicating virus reservoirs that prevent or dampen the effectiveness of antiretroviral treatment (ART). One such reservoir, the brain, reduces treatment efficacy via the blood-brain barrier (BBB), causing an obstacle to drug penetration into the brain. In this study, we develop a mathematical model to examine the impact of the BBB on ART effectiveness for mitigating brain HIV.

Modeling HIV-1 infection in the brain.

While highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) is successful in controlling the replication of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV-1) in many patients, currently there is no cure for HIV-1, presumably due to the presence of reservoirs of the virus. One of the least studied viral reservoirs is the brain, which the virus enters by crossing the blood-brain barrier (BBB) via macrophages, which are considered as conduits between the blood and the brain. The presence of HIV-1 in the brain often leads to HIV associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND), such as encephalitis and early-onset dementia.