Pariya Wheeler
University of Alabama at Birmingham, AL·Public Health & Epidemiology
HIV medicines can now suppress the virus to undetectable levels, yet many people living with HIV still have problems with memory, attention and thinking. Women living with HIV carry a larger share of this cognitive impairment.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Neuroscience
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
women living with HIV
HIV-associated neurocognitive disorder
cognitive impairment
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2027
What they work on
- Test which brain pathways, such as neurotransmitter loss, neurotoxic metabolites and nerve cell damage, link chronic immune activation (for example IL-6 and sCD163) to cognitive impairment in about 500 women from the Women's Interagency HIV Study.
- Identify how modifiable risk factors, namely depression and substance use, affect immune activation and neurobiological pathway markers, using stored biospecimens and existing behavioral data from three time points.
- Examine whether antiretroviral therapy levels in hair, a measure of medication adherence, explain part of the effect of depression and substance use on immune activation and brain pathway biomarkers.
More about the research
Even when the virus is controlled, their immune systems can stay chronically activated, and this ongoing inflammation is a consistent risk factor for cognitive decline. This project asks how that inflammation reaches the brain, and which risk factors that people could change make it worse.
Why it matters
Findings could guide prevention and treatment of cognitive impairment in women living with HIV. Identifying which biological markers drive cognitive decline may point to drug targets such as immune therapies or dopamine reuptake inhibitors. Clarifying how depression, substance use and medication adherence fuel inflammation could shape behavioral interventions, such as mental health and resilience programs, aimed at limiting the inflammation that leads to cognitive impairment.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Tracey Wilson
SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, NY·Public Health & Epidemiology
Characterize longitudinal, multidimensional patterns of social connection before and during the COVID era in the MACS/WIHS Combined Cohort Study, and identify social, behavioral and genomic predictors including polygenic risk scores.
Cecile Lahiri
Emory University, GA·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Test whether markers of HIV persisting in rectal tissue are linked to whole-body inflammation, immune activation, and the presence and progression of early, symptom-free heart disease, using repeated heart imaging and paired blood and rectal biopsies in about 100 virally suppressed people with HIV.
Deborah R. Gustafson
SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, NY·Public Health & Epidemiology
Investigate cardiovascular and pulmonary (heart and lung) health outcomes in people living with HIV, using decades of follow-up data from the Brooklyn site of the MACS/WIHS Combined Cohort Study (MWCCS).
The school
University of Alabama at Birmingham: 45 labs on PI Pages, $866M a year on research, 166 research doctorates a year.
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