HIV, AIDS, and the Brain

This monograph includes the proceedings of the 72nd Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease, held in New York, NY, in December 1992. Many of the leading investigators and clinical scientists were assembled for this meeting and contributed manuscripts. Price provides an insightful overview and highlights many of the critical unsolved issues regarding primary human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection of the nervous system. The first section of the book is devoted to interactions between the virus and the host immune system. This section includes an excellent review of cytokine circuitry by Benveniste. The important role of astrocyte and microglial activation, particularly in the face of bloodbrain barrier damage, is emphasized, as well as the complex interactions between proinflammatory and immunosuppressive cytokines. This chapter serves as an excellent basis for numerous recent studies that implicate cytokines in HIV-induced neural damage. This is followed by an equally