Brain decides between effort and reward

Children with HIV who can resist the disease progressing could point the way to new treatments for HIV infection that are more widely applicable to infected adults and children alike, an international team of researchers led by Oxford University has found. A study published in Science Translational Medicine looked at paediatric non-progressors  (PNPs), the 5 - 10% of children infected with HIV in whom the disease does not progress. While more than 50% of children with HIV die before two years old, PNP children can live normal childhoods, often without anyone realising they carry HIV. Some adults also resist HIV progression - just 0.3% of those infected - and until now research has focussed on the biological mechanisms that keep these adults from developing HIV disease, in the hope of finding a treatment. The way in which these rare adults control HIV infection is through a mounting a particularly strong immune response against the virus. Unfortunately in most cases mounting a strong immune response against HIV contributes to accelerated disease progression. Professor Philip Goulder, who led the research, said: 'With anti-retroviral therapy - ART - HIV infection can be prevented from developing into AIDS.