After varying lengths of time, Drs. Persidsky and Limoges examine slices of the mouse's brain to check progression of the disease. After one day they found the level of HIV infection to be less than 1 percent. After two weeks, the level had increased up to 80 percent. What may be even more significant than loss of neurons is the loss of dendrites.
Dendrites form a network between the neurons.
If you lose them, you lose function. One drug being tested is 1592-U from Glaxo Wellcome. It not only inhibits viral replication, but also can pass through the blood brain barrier. After injection of this drug into the SCID mouse, a 50 to 80 percent decrease in the spread of infection was detected. Persidsky and Limoges will present their findings at the Fifth Annual Conference of Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Chicago in February.