Abstract
Few studies have examined neuroimmune pathways that could contribute to impulsivity in people living with HIV who use substances. Eighty-four methamphetamine-using, sexual minority men with an undetectable HIV viral load were administered the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART), a behavioral measure of risk-taking propensity. We examined the associations between kynurenine/tryptophan ratio and phenylalanine/tyrosine ratio with BART scores using multiple linear regression. A higher kynurenine/tryptophan ratio was independently associated with greater BART scores (beta = 0.25; 95% CI = 0.05–1.23; p = 0.034). The phenylalanine/tyrosine ratio was not significantly associated with BART scores. Findings support the need for further research to elucidate the neuroimmune mechanisms linking tryptophan degradation with impulsivity to catalyze the development novel pharmacologic treatments for people living with HIV who use methamphetamine.
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Funding
This project was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01-DA033854; Carrico, Woods, and Moskowitz, PIs). Additional support for this project was provided by the University of California, San Francisco Center for AIDS Research’s Virology Core (P30-AI027763; Volberding, PI), the Miami Center for AIDS Research (P30-AI073961; Pahwa, PI), and the Center for HIV Research and Mental Health (P30-MH116867; Safren, PI).
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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. This project was investigator-initiated without directives from the funding sources in design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication.
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Lee, J., Lee, JY., Meade, C.S. et al. Tryptophan degradation is associated with risk-taking propensity in methamphetamine users with treated HIV infection. J. Neurovirol. 26, 779–784 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13365-020-00841-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13365-020-00841-4