Scripps Gets Major Grant to Study AIDS Dementia

This city’s status as a major center of research into how AIDS affects the brain and central nervous system received a boost Thursday with the announcement that Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation has received a $14-million grant to establish an AIDS Dementia Complex Research Center.

The five-year grant from the National Institute of Mental Health comes a little more than a year after the same organization awarded UC San Diego a similar $19.5-million, five-year award to study how the AIDS virus affects the neurological, psychological and behavioral condition of those with the disease.

“I think this has to put San Diego at the forefront . . . it speaks to the enormous amount of talent in this area of research and patient care,” said Leslie Franz, spokeswoman for UCSD.

Her view was endorsed by Scripps officials, who were touting their award as the largest single grant for biomedical research ever given to Scripps Clinic.

While both grants deal with AIDS-caused dementia, there are fundamental differences in the approaches and tasks of both medical institutions.

Scripps researchers, led by Dr. Floyd Bloom, head of the clinic’s neuropharmacology department, will delve into the underlying molecular and cellular basis for AIDS dementia mainly through basic scientific laboratory work on the central nervous system. This will involve analyzing the biological nature of persistent virus infections of the brain and how these infections affect communication among individual cells and, as a result, messages sent to neurons, the basis of the body’s nervous system.

In contrast, the focus of researchers at the UCSD-led HIV Neurobehavioral Research Center is studying people infected with the AIDS virus and finding out how the infection affects their behavior and central nervous system.

(Researchers have determined that AIDS--acquired immune deficiency syndrome--is caused by a virus known as HIV--human immunodeficiency virus.)

Bloom, in a prepared statement, said the Scripps study will be the only one of its kind that looks in a comprehensive manner at the biological underpinnings of central nervous system dementia, examples of which are lack of concentration or the inability to do simple tasks such as keeping personal checkbooks.

“Although virtually everyone with AIDS will express some form of dementia, researchers have been unable to determine how it is caused,” Bloom said.

“Since the central nervous system may be a repository for the HIV virus . . . being able to attack the virus in those cells that are infecting the brain may be a way to prolong the course and improve, to some degree, the survival of the individual.”

And there is a chance, Bloom said, that this research might lead to discovery of medicines to prevent the spread of AIDS.

Scripps researchers will look at how the HIV virus takes hold in the central nervous system early in the disease and the role the infection might play later in the immunodeficiency itself.

“A lot of people believe that a healthy nervous system is necessary for a well-functioning immune system,” Bloom said. “It may be that the central nervous system infection is actually causing, or in some fashion changing, the way in which the virus can depress the function of the immune system.”

Recent studies, for example, have shown that brain abnormalities have been seen in AIDS patients who themselves have not yet noticed any signs of dementia, Bloom said.

Among those studies, he said, are computer analysis of brain electrical activity tied to sensory stimulus such as clicks and tones, as well as measurements indicating abnormal sleep patterns.

“It may be,” said Bloom, “that people with AIDS are tolerating some degree of decline in mental ability, attributing that to fatigue or in some way to general health decline, but without knowing that it may be indicative of AIDS dementia.”

Working with Bloom, at least initially, will be 22 researchers from various Scripps Clinic departments such as neuropharmacology, immunology and molecular biology, chemistry and the sleep disorder center, and one researcher from UCSD’s department of psychiatry.

Scripps officials also said the work might provide information on causes that led to diseases such as schizophrenia.