The study, published in JCI Insight, collected cells called fibroblasts obtained with informed consent from the skin of six virologically suppressed people living with HIV and seven age- and sex-matched people without HIV. Applying cell-identity reprogramming techniques, they induced the fibroblasts to become neurons and found that those from the people with HIV had key differences in gene activity patterns, compared with those from people without HIV.

Some of these gene-activity differences resembled those seen in prior studies of post-mortem brain samples from people with and without HIV. Other gene-activity differences were observed for the first time, offering potential new leads to the causes of HIV-related cognitive deficits.