HIV hits the nervous system early

Medscape news story

Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from individuals with early HIV infection already showed signs of inflammation compared to samples from individuals without HIV, based on new data presented at CROI 2026.

Many people with HIV begin antiretroviral therapy years after acquiring the disease, but understanding central nervous system pathology in the early stages of infection has been limited.

The researchers examined CSF samples from 14 adult men with primary HIV before they began antiretroviral therapy. The men were enrolled in the study 160 days after HIV acquisition and followed for 48 visits. Their CSF samples were compared to those of 20 men without HIV who were control participants. The median age across all participants was 41 years. The researchers used an assay and heatmap to identify the 500 most variable proteins at timepoints with more than three samples between baseline and 12 months.

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