Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1986. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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United Press International - November 6, 1986
The virus, designated HTLV-3/LAV, also appears capable of causing some diseases directly rather than by destroying the body's natural immunity to infections, as is the case in acquired immune deficiency syndrome, researchers from the National Cancer Institute said in reports published in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
"The elegant and painstaking research reported here stands as a milestone," Dr. Robert Joynt, dean of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, and Dr. Howard Streicher of the institute wrote in an editorial accompanying the reports.
At the same time, the fact that the AIDS virus is present and active in the brain and central nervous system "is going to make treatment at least somewhat more complicated," Dr. Joynt said in a telephone interview.
Drugs and other therapeutic agents cannot pass easily from the blood stream into the brain and spinal fluid because of the barrier between the blood and the inner portion of the brain, and efforts to increase immunity in the body will probably not work in the brain, Dr. Joynt said.
Central Nervous System Differs
"Unfortunately, from an immunological standpoint, the central nervous system acts quite differently from the rest of the body," he said.
But Dr. Joynt added that while it was still not known how the AIDS virus gets into the brain and why it behaves differently there, the current research will make finding those answers easier.
"Now that we've localized where the virus attacks the central nervous system, that's really going to increase our whole understanding of this virus," he said.
Using brain tissue from an AIDS patient suffering from dementia, researchers were able to detect active AIDS virus in monocytes, the flat white blood cells that develop into large macrophage cells important in detecting and controlling infection.
While the AIDS virus does occasionally infect macrophages in the body, it primarily attacks and destroys the T-cell, an important coordinator of the body's immune system.
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