Wounded.Bird@f38.n135.z1.fidonet.org (Wounded Bird) (02/27/90)
It is my understanding that the HIV virus invades brain cells. Does anyone know
what it does to these cells ? Are these cells part of the immune system? I seem
to recall an article in the "Smithsonian" about the interaction of immune
responses with brain cells.
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Uucp: ...{gatech,ames,rutgers}!ncar!asuvax!stjhmc!135!38!Wounded.Bird
Internet: Wounded.Bird@f38.n135.z1.fidonet.orgWounded.Bird@f38.n135.z1.fidonet.org (Wounded Bird) (03/02/90)
Kenny I found some info in "AIDS the FACTS" by John Langone:
...What happens once the AIDS virus finds its way into the brain is still
conjecture [this was written in 1987]. Wiley's study found that although AIDS
patients suffer sever neurological disturbances, their expected brain tissue
abnormalities were surprisingly mild, and there was rarely, if ever, direct
infection of nerve cells. But Wiley and his associates speculated that the
virus causes brain damage indirectly, by producing edema in the brain, an
excessive accumulation of fluids, much as radiation treatment causes edema in
some cancer patients; the swelling, in turn, can cause generalized damage in
the brain, disrupting its delicate chemical communications system to produce a
number of neurological defects, including dementia. As Wiley explained
it:"Something elicits the migration of macrophages into the brain and in deep
white matter there is swelling". Speculation is that infected macrophages
secrete soluble substances that cause edema or perhaps other forms of tissue
damage. Once the endothelial cells in the brain capilaries are infected, they
could leak, thus compounding the edema problem and shifting the brains crucial
balances and concentrations of ions and electrolytes.............
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