Cerebral metabolism in HIV infected patients with non-cognitive disorder using single voxel magnetic resonance spectroscopy

Objective: To investigate the variance of metablites, including N-Acetyl aspartate (NAA), Choline (Cho) and Creatine (Cr), in brain regions of HIV infected patients with non-cognitive disorder and healthy volunteers by a 3.0 T magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Methods: Single voxel magnetic resonance spectroscopy was applied to measure the basal ganglia region, frontal lobe and parietal lobe in 69 HIV infected patients and 33 healthy volunteers. According to CD4 T cell count, the patients were divided into 2 groups, group A (≥200 cells/μL, 40 patients) and group B (<200 cells/μL, 29 patients). The normal control group, group C, consisted of 33 healthy volunteers. Results: The patients in groups A and B had lower ratio of NAA/Cr but higher ratio of Cho/Cr in the basal ganglia region than group C (P < 0.001; P = 0.021). Compared to groups B and C, the patients in group A had higher ratios of NAA/Cr and Cho/Cr (P = 0.013; P < 0.001) in the frontal lobe. In the parietal lobe, the patients in group A had higher ratio of Cho/Cr than groups B and C (P = 0.037). Conclusion: HIV infection induces inflammation in basal ganglia region, frontal lobe and parietal lobe before non-cognitive disorder occurs after HIV infection. However, the basal ganga region sees more neurons loss