HIV infection may play a role in accentuated and/or accelerated aging leading to neurocognitive dysfunction.
HIV infection plays an important role in accelerating aging in people living with HIV (PLWH). Cellular senescence has been recognized as a hallmark of aging. However, how HIV/SIV influences brain aging or how it affects the progression of neurological disorders relevant to cellular senescence in the brain is not well understood. Here, we used the SIV-infected rhesus macaque model to determine whether SIV contributes to aging of the brain.
The team uses in silico simulation, ex vivo, and in vivo experimental methods to determine the role of SIV infection in brain aging. The lab studies SIV-infected rhesus macaques on ART to determine whether factors such as SIV and antiretroviral drugs themselves contribute to sustained neuroinflammation, cellular senescence and senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) in brain aging in the nonhuman primate model of HIV infection.