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The spatial relationship between neurons and astrocytes in HIV-associated dementia

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Abstract

Specific neuronal spatial distributional patterns have previously been correlated with increasing severity of HIV-associated dementia (HAD). As astrocytes are also a putative site of neurotoxicity, we investigated the spatial relationships of astrocytes with pyramidal and interneurons in the superior frontal gyrus from 29 patients who died from acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Frontal cortical brain tissue was taken from diseased HIV patients who had been assessed for the presence and severity of HAD using the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Scale. No correlation was found between neuronal density and severity of dementia. However, the pattern of astrocytes became more clustered as dementia progressed. Bivariate spatial pattern analysis of neuronal populations with astrocytes revealed that, with increasing dementia severity, astrocytes and large pyramidal neurons increasingly “repelled” each other, while astrocytes and interneurons evidenced increasing “attraction.” This implies that astrocytes may be more likely to be situated in the vicinity of surviving interneurons but less likely to be situated near surviving large pyramidal neurons in the setting of progressing HAD.

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Acknowledgments

Funding for this work was kindly provided by AVERT–The AIDS Education and Research Trust (AVERT, NS26643, RR00722).

IPE is supported by grants R01MH079881, R41MH079728, R25MH074508, R25MH081482, and R21MH078728.

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None of the authors have any conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. King’s College London, Guy’s Campus, Room 1.18 Hodgkin Building, SE1 1UL, London, UK

    Eleanor S. Roberts

  2. Department of Psychiatry, Royal Melbourne Hospital, The University of Melbourne, Level 1 North Main Block, Parkville, VIC, Australia

    Gursharan Chana, Timothy B. Nguyen, Gayathri Perera & Ian Paul Everall

  3. Department of Biostatistics, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London, UK

    Sabine Landau

  4. Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Sophia Rabe-Hesketh

  5. Neuromuscular Division, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Jonathan D. Glass

  6. Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Justin McArthur

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  1. Eleanor S. Roberts
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  2. Gursharan Chana
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  3. Timothy B. Nguyen
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  4. Gayathri Perera
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  5. Sabine Landau
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  6. Sophia Rabe-Hesketh
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  7. Jonathan D. Glass
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  9. Ian Paul Everall
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Correspondence to Ian Paul Everall.

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Roberts, E.S., Chana, G., Nguyen, T.B. et al. The spatial relationship between neurons and astrocytes in HIV-associated dementia. J. Neurovirol. 19, 123–130 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13365-013-0149-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13365-013-0149-y

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