Whole-brain computational modeling reveals disruption of microscale brain dynamics in HIV infected individuals

Abstract

AbstractIn this study, we adopted the relaxed mean-field dynamic modeling to investigate structural and functional connectivity in forty-two HIV-infected subjects before and after 12-week of combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) and compared them with forty-six age-matched healthy subjects. Microscale brain dynamics were modeled by a set of parameters including two region-specific microscale brain properties, recurrent connection strengths, and subcortical inputs. We also analyzed the relationship between the model parameters (i.e. the recurrent connection and subcortical inputs) and functional network topological characterizations. The results show that untreated HIV-infected individuals have disrupted local brain dynamics that in part correlate with network topological measurements. Notably, after 12 weeks of cART, both the microscale brain dynamics and the network topological measurements improved and were closer to those in the healthy brain. This was also associated with improved cognitive performance, suggesting that improvement in local brain dynamics translates into clinical improvement.