By studying animals, Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered that the antibiotic minocycline might help alleviate HIV’s negative effects on the brain and central nervous system, problems that can develop even though antiretroviral therapy controls the virus elsewhere in the body. Five monkeys infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), a very close relative of HIV, and treated with minocycline had less damage to brain cells, less brain inflammation, and less virus in the central nervous system than six infected monkeys that received no treatment, the researchers report in the April 27 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
