In human beings the HIV virus enters the brain almost immediately after a person is infected with the virus. As many as 20 percent of people who contract AIDS will eventually develop HIV-associated dementia — defined as a decline in cognitive thinking, motor dysfunction and behavioral changes.
Enter Ohio State University researcher Michael Poddell who conducts research on an animal model of HIV in cats. In a study to be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of NeuroVirology, Poddell reports that the feline immunodeficiency virus reproduces in certain types of brain cells much faster than usual if the drug methamphetamine is present.
Poddell’s research surprisingly found that brain cells called astrocytes were resistant to FIV infection. Instead the virus got into the brain cells by being carried there by infected lymphocytes (a type of blood cell). Follow-up tests will be needed to see if HIV infects human brain cells in a similar way.
Adding methamphetamine at levels similar to what a drug users would have in his or her bloodstream increased the infection rate ten-fold.
Experiments are currently underway to see if methamphetamine causes FIV to progress more quickly in cats.
Podell, of course, has been excoriated by animal rights activists for his FIV research. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has called his experiments “cruel, wasteful and bizarre” and Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine filed a lawsuit in January against the National Institutes of Health claiming that the NIH withheld documents that would show that it was unnecessary to use cats for this research.
Cats are used for this research because they are the only laboratory animals other than primates that develop a neurological infections from HIV.
Sources:
Methamphetamines may assist HIV in brain. Jim Kling, United Press International, June 4, 2002.
Update on Neurology Justin McArthur, M.D., 1998.
AIDS study targeting cats infuriates animal activists. Associated Press, October 9, 2000.