Full Text Available

Note: Clicking the button above will open the full text document at the original institutional repository in a new window.

Effects of HIV and different anti-retroviral therapy (ART) regimes on brain structure in HIV infected children at age 7

Includes bibliographical references

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Nwosu, Emmanuel Chukwubuikem
Other Authors: Meintjes, Ernesta M
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Division of Biomedical Engineering 2016
Subjects:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1867613231366799360
access_status_str Open Access
author Nwosu, Emmanuel Chukwubuikem
author2 Meintjes, Ernesta M
author_browse Meintjes, Ernesta M
Nwosu, Emmanuel Chukwubuikem
author_facet Meintjes, Ernesta M
Nwosu, Emmanuel Chukwubuikem
author_sort Nwosu, Emmanuel Chukwubuikem
collection Thesis
description Includes bibliographical references
format Thesis
id oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/16696
institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:32:51.499Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2016
publishDateRange 2016
publishDateSort 2016
publisher Division of Biomedical Engineering
publisherStr Division of Biomedical Engineering
record_format dspace
source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/16696 Effects of HIV and different anti-retroviral therapy (ART) regimes on brain structure in HIV infected children at age 7 Nwosu, Emmanuel Chukwubuikem Meintjes, Ernesta M Robertson, Frances C Biomedical Engineering Includes bibliographical references By 2013, more than 300, 000 children were living with HIV-infection in South Africa. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommended early aggressive antiretroviral therapy (ART) initiation to manage HIV in children, based on studies that reported this protocol as effective in reducing mortality and HIV progression. Early ART initiation in HIV-infected children generated new concern about the long-term effects on neurodevelopment. There is still much to understand about the outcome of HIV and early ART on children's brain structure and neurocognitive skills. This study therefore investigated the effects of HIV and early ART on brain morphometry in 7-year old children using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Participants were 99 Xhosa children (56 HIV-infected children 43 uninfected controls, 50 boys, mean age = 7.21 ± 0.14 years) from the neuroimaging follow-on study of the Children with HIV Early Antiretroviral (CHER) trial. T1-weighted structural MRI data were acquired on a 3T Allegra (Siemens, Erlangen, Germany) within 6 months of their 7th birthday. In the CHER trial, HIV-infected infants were randomized at 7 weeks of age into three arms, two of which received immediate ART for either 40 or96 weeks. The third arm received ART when clinically or immunologically indicated by WHO 2006criteria. At age 7 years, all children were stable on ART. Scans were performed in accordance with protocols approved by the human research ethics committees of Stellenbosch and Cape Town Universities; all parents provided written informed consent and children provided oral assent. MRI scans were analysed with FreeSurfer's automated processing stream (http://freesurfer.net/) to generate measures of cortical thickness, local gyrification index (LGI), and regional (corpus callosum, bilateral caudate, hippocampus, putamen, thalamus, and lateral ventricle) and global brain volumes. Vertex-wise and region of interest (ROI) comparisons were performed between and within HIV infected and uninfected children. Relationships between morphometric and clinical data were investigated. Our results showed no significant difference in cortical thickness between HIV-infected and uninfected children. Uninfected children had greater gyrification than HIV-infected children in a left medial parietal region while HIV-infected children had smaller volumes of the bilateral putamen (p=0.001)and right hippocampus (p=0.01), and smaller total white (p=0.001) and gray (p=0.02) matter volumes. There was no effect of duration of ART in HIV-infected children except in the left hippocampus where longer (96 weeks) duration was associated with greater volume. There was no significant relationship between cortical thickness at age 7 and immunological status at enrollment, but regional (caudal middle frontal, pars orbitalis, lateral occipital and superior parietal regions) gyrification showed a relationship with immune system parameters (CD4 count, CD4percentage and CD4/CD8 ratio) respectively. A healthier immune system at enrollment - CD4percentage and CD4/CD8 ratio - was associated with reduced volume in the caudate nucleus, while longer cumulative duration on ART was associated with increased volume of the bilateral thalamus at age 7. There was no difference in brain volume or cortical thickness measures between HIV-exposed but uninfected (HEU) children and HIV-unexposed uninfected (HUU), but HEU children had greater gyrification in the left precuneus region which may be abnormal due to HIV/ART exposure in utero. In conclusion, LGI and subcortical volumes were affected in HIV-infected children but their cortical thickness was not affected. This may likely have effects on neurodevelopmental skills and cortical folding development. 2016-02-02T14:42:07Z 2016-02-02T14:42:07Z 2015 Master Thesis Masters MSc (Med) http://hdl.handle.net/11427/16696 eng application/pdf Division of Biomedical Engineering Faculty of Health Sciences University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Biomedical Engineering
Nwosu, Emmanuel Chukwubuikem
Effects of HIV and different anti-retroviral therapy (ART) regimes on brain structure in HIV infected children at age 7
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Effects of HIV and different anti-retroviral therapy (ART) regimes on brain structure in HIV infected children at age 7
title_full Effects of HIV and different anti-retroviral therapy (ART) regimes on brain structure in HIV infected children at age 7
title_fullStr Effects of HIV and different anti-retroviral therapy (ART) regimes on brain structure in HIV infected children at age 7
title_full_unstemmed Effects of HIV and different anti-retroviral therapy (ART) regimes on brain structure in HIV infected children at age 7
title_short Effects of HIV and different anti-retroviral therapy (ART) regimes on brain structure in HIV infected children at age 7
title_sort effects of hiv and different anti retroviral therapy art regimes on brain structure in hiv infected children at age 7
topic Biomedical Engineering
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/16696
work_keys_str_mv AT nwosuemmanuelchukwubuikem effectsofhivanddifferentantiretroviraltherapyartregimesonbrainstructureinhivinfectedchildrenatage7